The Holidays

My wife Rock Star Shondabo and I the incredible Hater of Cuddles, are glad to have had the holidays together this year. Lets start with Halloween. Well, I shaved my head; although it is hard to tell with my wig on and Shonda wore a wig. No really, she did. We had a handfull of trick or treaters come to our abode. The festivities began a few days before when I told Shonda that I needed a hair cut. She responded that I shoud cut my hair like the picture she has of me on her phone. Background note: Her phone was acting poorly, so she got a hold of one of her sister's old phones and put her phone card into it. On the phone she had pictures of all of her favorite five but me. So I picked a picture for her: a bald, black dude, smiling really big. So I said, "okay." She was not being serious in the least, but I took her up on her suggestion and shaved my head completely bald. It was a good one time experience.

We had Daniel Koberstein and his girlfriend Karla Garcias over that night for food and games. We started the night with homemade tostadas that Karla and Dan brought over. Boy were they delicious! mmmmMMMMmmmm! A few trick or treaters came during that time but not many. Then we moved onto a game of Settlers of Catan, in which one of us won. It was that memorable.

For Thanksgiving we gobbled some gobblers down in Hyrum, Utah with the Petersen Clan. I say clan because they could fortify a small country or create a family crest and it would truly fit this group of people. I, Craig Hayes, made three pies for thanksgiving this year. Prior to this fabulous day, I made two pumkin pies, from scratch mind you, and tested them on my mother and sister, Carrie. The first two turned out great for my first time ever baking pies and my second batch for thanksgiving were a big hit too. If my word is not worth enough to you, please refer to any of the petersen clan who was present at Thanksgiving. The festivities for the day included eating pie, turkey dinner, eating more pie, an air hockey tournament, and a four on four football game.

Black friday came and went with three particular things that happened: Christmas tree chopping, free ice cream cones at Artic Circle, and game night at the Tveters. I was not prepared for Christmas tree chopping. Luckily, I have a brother in law who has relatively similar shoe sizes and allowed me to wear a pair he owns. Thank you Aaron. Shonda also recieved boots from the Dyches. Only her and her sisters all seem to be much more of the same size, so it makes sense that one of them would have something for her. Gratefully they did. Thank you Kenna. We drove past Preston, Idaho and pulled into a snowy wonderland. We found 5 good looking trees and "chopped" them down. Really, we used a hand saw but for sake of classic stereotypical Christmas lingo, we chopped it down. After we gathered our trees and headed back to the car, we went to Artic Circle, where Papa Petersen bought the whole gang food. That was really nice of him. Plus the nice people at Artic Cirlce gave us all free ice cream cones. I thik we got them because of how much we spent there. Its like a club membership at other stores but instead of price cuts you get free ice cream cones...Okay, well, maybe its not like that at all but it sure makes me sleep well at night. Lastly, we ended the day with Joseph and Sarah Tveter and played Settlers of Catan with both expantions. It was great to see the Tveters and play a game.

We finished our weekend up with the blessing of Holly Merretta Dyches. That was a beautiful opportunity for me. I was asked to be in the circle along with many of the Petersen Clan. (I cannot remember all who was in the circle. For more details ask Kenna or Aaron Dyches.) Afterward we took a picture of everyone who was present and then belined our way back to Rexburg to attend our church meetings and give talks. We were allowed 7 minutes each and there were four speakers. Shonda and I spoke last. Shonda gave a wonderful talk on being thankful for the personalized plan our Father in Heaven has for us. I gave a much shorter talk (due to shortage of time) on giving thanks by means of sacrifice. We enjoyed the opportunity to speak in our Sacrament meeting.