Glacial Rexburg Winter

The other day the DJ's on the radio decided they didn't have enough creative words to describe just how cold it was so they asked people to call in with more ideas for them. Glacial was their favorite... And this morning's temperatures were most certainly "glacial." At 8:00 this morning Rexburg was enjoying a brisk -20 degrees with the wind bringing it down to -34 according to weather.com. Supposedly it was the lowest overnight temperature in 10 years. It was cold, but we somehow managed to survive. Today I learned that no matter how cold it is, it could always be worse... At least it wasn't snowing.

What cute neices and nephews we have!

All of our neices and nephews are SUPER CUTE (what a lucky aunt and uncle we are!), but we are going to highlight Gavin and Megan Black in this blog, because we got the fun opportunity to babysit them last week while Cassie and Mark were on a VIP tour of the Rexburg Temple. So, here they are!

Megger-moo, as papa Holloway calls her, is about

the cutest girl around. I love her little smile!

Gavin is a candy loving kid! He yoinked

a tootsie roll pop soon after he arrived at

our apt., and enjoyed it the rest of the

time that he was here. Trav played "who's

that?" with him, as they looked at all of the

family blogs. He knew us, Cailyn, his own

family, and the Blackfoot Holloways right off

the batt, but picked up pretty quick on everyone

else in the family.

Gavin was all about watching

He-man while he was here. Every time an

episode would end, he would say "Bye Bye He-man."

And when a new episode would start, he would

excitedly yell, "HE-MAN!" What a cool kid!

Megan loves graham crakers!! She

wouldn't have ANY of us stopping

feeding them to her til she was good

and done. She is definately ready

for big girl food. Yummy graham crackers!

Thanks for letting us hang out with

your wonderful kids, Cassie and Mark!

Blackfoot Gingerbread Houses

On Christmas Eve, the Holloways assembled their gingerbread houses--this time in Blackfoot. Mama Holloway cut the graham cracker walls and roofs, Cassie and Mark provided the decorations, and Travis made the icing. We all had fun creating (and eating) our houses.

Here's mama Holloway cutting the graham crackers:

Here are mom and dad Holloway making their

gingerbread house, with Megan and Gavin as

their inspectors. Notice mom's "nipple"

decoration (later turned into a holiday

wreath). Oops =)

What a cute little on-looker Megan is!

I thought this scene was so precious--Grandma Lita

telling Gavin all about their gingerbread house. He's

such a smart little guy.

Gavin's favorite task was to test taste

all of our candy decorations (a very important job).

And as he had no complaints, all of the decorations

were a go!

Gavin and Megan's parents, Mark and Cassie

Black, making their gingerbread house:

Cassie talked to Chelsi, our sister, as she decorated

her gingerbread house, and Mark worked away

on their mansion.

Travis' brother, Tyler, working on his complicated

gingerbread design:

Trav's sister, Tia, came in to help him out (it all

worked out, by the way, and ended up looking

really great).

Here's my sweetie working on our traditional

graham craker gingerbread house.

Our finished product...yum! (Notice our little

outhouse--my idea, and the tree with a star on

top--Trav's creation). We were pretty proud.

We all had a fun time making our

tasty treats, and a nice little Holloway

village!

Stockings Hung by the Chimney with Care

As we are an official family now, me and Travis decided that we would make our own Christmas stockings this year. We wanted to do them in the same fashion that Travis' parents made his--the red felt, white fuzzy top, felt decoration, and iron on letters--you know, traditional stockings. So, we raided Porter's for all of the materials, then came home to create our masterpieces. And with some sewing guidance from Travis' parents, were able to complete some pretty good- lookin' stockings (if we do say so ourselves.)

The Holloway Family Stockings.

My stocking:

Travis' stocking:

Then we hung them up on the railing...

And woke up Christmas morning to find goodies in them from Santa!

We love our stockings, and the traditions we are creating early on in our new little family!

I don't think we ever posted the correct answer to the poll we put up a few weeks ago. Most of you probably know by now that Jenny is the new Primary President in our ward. Stacy Stone, Levi's wife was the president until they moved to Utah a few weeks ago, due to his graduation from school. Our ward primary right now consists of two children, both 2 years old. We're excited for this new calling and I know Jenny will do a great job. She told me the other day that if she can't do anything else she can love those children very much. I think that's the most important thing.

This looks like a new post but it's actually a continuation of the previous post so read that one first, please. Thanks.
So after dinner at La Casita we went back home to exchange gifts. It was not quite the 25th but we wanted it to feel like Christmas so we read the Christmas story from the Bible and then gave each other gifts.
The first picture is Jenny's mom opening the gift Jenny got for her, some nice facial stuff from Nicole Miller and a nice bag to put them in.















Below is Mike and Jenn opening a gift from Susan. They live in Louisiana and Jenn is flying back and Mike isn't sure how long he's staying or not staying in Washington so gift cards seemed like the most convenient gift for them. That is what you don't see under the green paper in the box in the picture.




















Here's Papa John opening the gift we gave him, President Gordon B. Hinckley's biography. He was also very excited when he opened a package of brand new, gold toe socks. That was the only thing on his list and he would have been devestated if he didn't get any.




















This is me opening the DVD Mom and Dad Reed gave me, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. They also gave me a very nice temple bag. So I no longer have to use my old school backpack.

Jenny was the one taking all the pictures so we don't have any of her opening gifts... unless I have some on my camera. I'll check. Nope. And for the life of me I can't remember what she got from her parents so she'll have to let you know later. I do remember that Mike and Jenn brought some sleeping bags for us that they actually meant to give us as a wedding gift...but due to the cost and hassle of shipping they became Christmas presents instead. I forgot to mention that Chelsi got us some camp chairs so we are slowly collecting the gear we need to run away to the woods if we ever get a free weekend. Hopefully we'll have more than one opportunity this summer. That doesn't have much to do with Christmas...but we are very thankful to everyone who gave us anything this Christmas. I love the Christmas spirit of giving.

We will be sure to post the last of the Issaquah pictures as well as pics from our very white Christmas in Blackfoot as well, so stay tuned!

Home for the Holidays

I know it's been a while since our last post which doesn't make much sense because we were on vacation so we should have had more time...but you know how that goes. Anyway, we have loved reading your posts and seeing pics from your holiday celebrations and we want to share ours with all of you.

Some of you may know that Jenny's parents are selling their house and plan to move to Tucson, AZ. They have an offer and will be closing on the 18th of January so our trip up to Issaquah was probably the last one for a while. Thankfully, Jenny's brother Mike and his wife Jenn came up from Lousiana also so their entire family was together for the holidays. "There's no place like home for the holidays." So here are some pics from Issaquah. And a little disclaimer -- Jenny is the blog-master in our family but she is working all day at Melaleuca. It is the last day of the month so she belongs to them today. (But school starts in about 10 days so she's almost done working there!!!) I thought i'd try my luck at blogging so if something looks funny blame my inexperience.

We were the proud designers of this lovely gingerbread house. Well, actually it was a kit but we didn't exactly follow the picture on the box, if you know what I mean. It's a Reed family tradition to make gingerbread houses for the holidays so we did. Here are some more pics of it.

Do not be decieved. While it may look tasty it actually is far from it. I got some of the frosting on my hands as we were making it so naturally, I licked it off and was surprised to find that it tasted more like play-dough than frosting. I guess it keeps kids from picking in while they're making their houses.

Here's an action shot...

And my beautiful wife as she proudly displays the finished product.

We flew from Boise to Seattle on the 19th of December in the evening. On the 20th we did some last minute shopping and then went to Everett, WA to meet Chelsi and Kamela! It was so good to see them. Jenny and I were both kicking ourselves for forgetting our cameras but luckily Chelsi had one on her phone so we at least got something. She posted those on her blog so you can go there to see them. I'm glad nobody in our family had to fly solo for all the holiday season. Jason and Brandon got together with their families, we got to see Chelsi & Kamela, and when we got back to Idaho we spent some time with Cassie and Mark and their family along with Mom, Dad, Tyler and Tia in Blackfoot.

Jenny's Dad was working on the 21st so that was our gingerbread house day. We watched "White Christmas" while assembling our work of art seen above. That night we got together with Mike and Jenn, went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant, La Casita -- a Reed family favorite. It was really good but I ate way too much. Here are some pics that Jenny took from the restaurant.

Mom and Dad Reed

Mike and Jenn Reed

Travis and Jenny Holloway (that's us)

The Restaurant