Thank You for the Love

Hi Everyone,

We are humbled that you all want to spend some quality time with us when we come down in December for Christmas. We realize that everyone is very busy and we were not insensitive to this when we made the decision to come down. This is a very unique opportunity for us to have so much time available with out having to take to much “personal time” off of work or school and we wanted to come down to see everyone with this opportunity. We feel blessed that we can share this opportunity.

That being said, I need to say I was made aware of this thread of discussion and have agreed for the most part to stay out of making any firm decisions regarding the activities surrounding the celebration of our Lord’s birth specifically because I knew that there would be many families involved and I did not want our family to be the center of any contention. I am concerned that this is exactly where this thread has the potential to go so I will offer our schedule and a few thoughts on questions brought up but I will leave it to you and your families as to how you want to proceed after that. We are open to just about anything as long as we can see all of you during this great season of love and joy.

- We will be doing a Christmas dinner/get together here with Harvey and Suzanne (whom we just brought up to live closer to us so that Nicole can help her more to become better) on the Sunday prior to Christmas.

- We plan on leaving here (weather permitting) early Monday morning and traveling as far as Gooding, Idaho (which is where we hope to be by night fall). We have determined for the safest travel it would be better not to travel at night if possible.

- We plan at this point to leave there early Tuesday morning and to be in Utah Valley by early to mid afternoon.

- After the holiday we plan on leaving Saturday morning to head on home.

You will notice that we have planned nothing for while we are there yet. Yes, we would love to get a family picture done. Yes, we would love to have a full family get together with everyone together and enjoying one another’s company. But, beyond that we leave it up to you and your schedules.

Here are a few suggestions (both heard and unheard) that I offer up as possibilities, again it is up to you:

- It was suggested that we get together, by Dad, on the 26th for a meal at their house. This shouldn’t interfere with most other families activities and Nicole and I can help get some of the cooking done while others may have to be at work during that day.

- On Christmas Day itself I vey much enjoyed the suggestion that Jenny put forth, that people will be just going in and out all day at Mom and Dad’s. Maybe this could be a snacky kind of day with treats and little sandwiches or something along those lines. Something that doesn’t require anyone putting forth a lot of effort on this day that so that all can enjoy it.

- Again because people might have to work during the day, we could probably do the pictures Friday evening. We would rather not do a dressy photo as we were not planning on bringing suits and dresses and such. It might not be a good idea to do white shirts for a couple of reasons, such as with a snowy background we might all look like floating heads so that might not be as good an idea. I agree we probably don’t want to look hodge podge so I am good with going with a specified color shirt and slacks (like beige or something). We think Mom and Dad could coordinate to their liking and the rest of could coordinate as a colored background for them. I am not choosy on the colors and we could even coordinate boys one color, and girls a complementing one. Another suggestion might be to have each family choose a different color to signify who belongs to who with Mom and Dad again coordinated to their liking.

In other words we are coming down to just enjoy family. Please do not be concerned with anything major if it will cause any issues on Christmas Eve or Day. We want to see and enjoy you and if that means one at a time then that will have to do. As far as Mom’s morale (as it was suggested) I think I would be more concerned with her sanity after having to try and coordinate a major gathering, so if we cannot all get together for more than a small meal and pictures that is okay to.

We love all of you and cannot wait to see you.

Thanks,
Brent