NYE

 Ohio State played football and Ethan watched with Tom. These two get along well. It’s been nice living near family. 

Urban hiking

 

We had four house showings today so we had to be gone for awhile. Grace went with Blake’s family to resort hop. Ethan came with me to ride all the types of transportation available at Disney, and to see some decorations.

We parked in the MK lot and took the tram to the entrance then we walked to the Polynesian Resort. We had lunch there and enjoyed sitting by the waterfall. It is a beautiful resort. 

Then we walked to the Grand Floridan and saw the life sized gingerbread house. It’s the fanciest of the hotels and is fun to walk around. 

From there we finished the loop around the lake and rode the ferry back to the parking lot. We hopped on the monorail to Epcot next. 

Normally I would have cut through the park to get to the skyliner but Ethan doesn’t have a pass so we took the bus to HS and then got on the skyliner there.

That took us to the boardwalk where we saw the gingerbread carousel and caught a bus back to MK.

A quick ferry ride, plus a short tram ride, took us back to the parking lot and we were done.  It was fun, although to be completely transparent one of us liked it a lot more than the other!

We both liked the skyliner best. The boat ride at the end of the day was fun because the sky was pink and the sun was setting which was beautiful. 

I coined the phrase urban hiking, which E said isn’t a thing, but I think it is. It’s when you randomly meander around a city area and enjoy the sights. 

From Blake and Grace’s day

Driving

 

Unexpectedly we got to take one more mission photo. The Hamilton’s had a zoom meeting for all their missionaries from the whole year. They made the mission baptism goal and wanted to be grateful together. It’s been really fun to hear about Ethan’s mission the last couple of months. 

Today we are driving home. It’s been super long, with tons of traffic, and right now I am the passenger which I do not love. 

The awful news of the day is our home sale fell through. We are back on the market and have 3 showings tomorrow. That means we will get home around 11 and spend some time fluffing up the house. It also means I won’t be able to go fluff up Ethan’s apartment when he goes to school. For Christmas the girls got me a ticket to fly to Utah with him. This was the nicest gift ever! It makes me so happy that they want to spend time with me as much as I want to spend time with them.

We are going to change the flight to Marshall’s baptism weekend, which is also so awesome. 

We’ve been listening to conference talks and podcasts and stuff on the drive. My favorite one of the day was by Elder Bednar. It was a couple years old and was called “quit worrying about it! Is it the Holy Ghost or just me?”. It was really good. I always love his talks. I realized this morning that the talks by apostles that I look forward to the most are by the ones with whom I have had a personal experience. I ❤️❤️❤️ Elder Holland. Dani and I saw him speak in person when he was first called and it was a life changing experience. Elder Bednar -Rob and Hannah and I saw in CA and he was amazing. Elder Renlund -we saw in Florida not too long ago in a two day meeting that was so awesome! I love all the apostles but I’m a little extra excited to hear the ones I “know”. This made me think about how important it is to know the Savior in a real, and a personal way. Having a relationship with Him is critical to our spiritual growth and to our salvation. Knowing Him adds to our joy and makes our earth life more pleasant and purposeful. I am grateful that He is accessible to all of us and that he love each of us enough to die for us. The least we can do is live for him. 

Dinner

Grace has been wanting to get a second piercing. After Emma came over today we got busy. First on the agenda was a blind taste test. I told her, with great confidence, that I could definitely tell Diet Coke from other sodas. She brought over an assortment and I couldn’t tell! What?? I was super surprised but I still like Diet Coke best. I think my taste buds were overwhelmed with all the sodas and that the taste kind of lingered. Rob also tried, as did Abba. Abba did the best. 

We ate Ron’s pizza. Abba and Rob have a long running disagreement on which is best Ron’s or Marion’s. We had Marion’s earlier during our visit. 

Then we went to the mall and Grace got her doubles. They look very cute. 

Before we came Ethan had reached out to the Spanish ward elders to see if anyone in the ward could teach us how to make tamales. That evolved into us having the elders and the Martines family (from Mexico) over to teach us how to make enchiladas and Spanish rice and beans. It was really fun. We had a full house and dinner was fabulous. The rice was out of the world good and the salsa was surprisingly easy to make. 

It was fun getting to know them and sharing an evening and a meal with them. We had made desserts and then Yuvia made a dessert too so we had a table full of treats. 

After everyone left Ethan showed us videos from his mission. It was a good day.

 

Newport Aquarium

 Emma spent the night again and this morning we woke up bright and early (ha ha- really it was like 8am) and went to the aquarium in Cincinnati. 

It was snowing, which surprised us but we made it there easily and had a good time. 

It’s a super cute aquarium. We enjoyed the fish and aquatic mammals. I saw a new to me fish called the four eyed anableps anableps. It swims on the top of the water and we were very entertained watching it hop over a little log in the water.

This manta tank also entertained us.💕

After we had lunch at TomChee, which was the perfect cold weather meal, and then came home. 

Look at these cute girls getting their new jeeps from Nana and Abba!

Sledding fun in Utah🛷

32

 Today is Sierra’s birthday! She is amazing. I am so grateful that she is still here and doing well. She and Chris have been married for 8 months. They’ve faced challenges together and are learning and growing. They team teach gospel doctrine in their ward and are an amazing aunt and uncle to their kiddos.

She is still working at the same company and although she doesn’t always love it the work is going well. Figuring out what to be when you grow up can be tough! 

She loves to go hiking, loves playing games and watching Netflix, she is kind, sweet, independent, and really tries to be there for her family and friends. 

I wish I was there to celebrate but I am grateful that she lives by a lot of family and I will never stop being grateful that her life was spared and that she is miraculously doing so well💕

Christmas Weekend

Christmas Eve we went to an escape room. We didn’t escape but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

After we went to Bravo! for some yummy food and spent the night playing games and watching Christmas specials.

Christmas morning we got up and went to church. The service was very beautiful with Christmas music and a talk. 
 

We came home and ate and waited for Uncle Brian to come before we opened presents. 

Remember the missing puzzle piece? It was wrapped up under the tree! Ethan made a pretty funny video about taking it and hiding it there.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves and got nice presents.

Then we cooked, played games, cleaned up, watched a movie, and talked to family far away.

It was a nice weekend and so sweet to spend it with Nana and Abba, UB, Emma, and Ethan and Grace who both leave for college on the next 2 weeks to 8 months.

-9

There is winter storm making its way across the country. It’s very cold. 

We pretty much stayed home watching movies. 

 Lincoln loves the cold. 

Gingerbread

Grace got her hair done today and it looks really pretty. We went to “the big bag of rusty nails” for lunch and it was yummy. 

 Ethan wanted to make gingerbread cookies. They turned out amazing. Maybe the best gingerbread cookies I have ever had. I’m going to save the recipe. 

I also made carnitas from the favorite things party cook book and they were also delicious. It was a good cooking day.

Most noteworthy, after being on the waiting list for 10 months we finally made it to next in line for

The Mayo Clinic. In March we will go there for a whole study and hopefully some great help and advice for EDS. A long awaited miracle!

Also it’s super cold and getting colder!

Ingredients 

For Gingerbread Men

• ½ cup unsalted butter softened (113g) 
• ½ cup light or dark brown sugar tightly packed (100g)
• ½ cup unsulphured molasses (120ml) (I use Grandma's or Brer Rabbit brand and avoid using blackstrap)
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 ¾ cups all purpose flour (345g)
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

For Icing:

• 3 cups powdered sugar sifted (375g)
• 2-4 Tablespoons milk
• 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• Decorative candies and sprinkles as desired

• 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• Decorative candies and sprinkles as desired

Instructions

For Cookies:

• Combine butter, sugar, and molasses and use an electric mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment to beat until ingredients are creamy and well-combined.
• Stir in egg and vanilla extract until well-combined. The mixture may look piecey/like it's separating, this is fine and it will come together when you add the dry ingredients.
• In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg).
• With mixer on low speed, gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until the dough is smooth, cohesive, and completely combined.
• Divide the dough into two parts (it will be quite sticky, use a spatula) and wrap each tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Rolling and Cutting Cookies

• Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 375F (190C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (alternatively bake cookies directly on ungreased baking sheet)
• Generously flour a clean surface and lightly flour the dough as well (see note).
• Use a rolling pin to roll the dough to be approximately ¼” (.6cm) thick, and use a cookie cutter (my cookie cutter for these was about 3.5” long) to cut out shapes. 
• Use a spatula to place cookies on prepared baking sheet, spacing at least 2" apart and then transfer to 375F (190C) oven, and bake for 8-10 minutes.
• Allow cookies to cool completely on baking sheet before decorating. 

Gingerbread Cookie Icing

• Combine sugar, 2 Tablespoons of milk, corn syrup, and vanilla extract in a medium-sized bowl and stir until combined. Look for a consistency where the icing that drizzles off the spoon and back into the bowl holds its shape for several seconds before dissolving back into the rest of the icing. If frosting is too thick, add more milk, about a teaspoon at a time, until the frosting is thick but pipeable. If too thin, add additional powdered sugar until desired texture is reached.
• Transfer to a piping bag with a piping tip (I used Wilton #5), or place in a Ziploc bag and snip a small piece of the corner off. Pipe frosting on cookies and decorate with decorative candies, if desired.
• Allow frosting to harden before enjoying (this took only about 30 minutes for me, but may take longer if your frosting is wetter)
• Keep uneaten cookies sealed in an airtight container at room temperature.