Sunday

Yesterday morning Jeff called me (he was already at church for bishopric meeting) and said "Brother Smith (2nd counsilor in our bishopric) would like to meet with you a couple minutes before Sacrament meeting". I said "Okay" found our what time I would need to meet him and then proceeded to get ready for church while wondering "why would the he want to meet with me?".

Well.... Yesterday I taught my last lesson as the Laurels advisor and am now the ward activities chairman! I did not expect this calling at all (even though I did tell Jeff that I would like to do that calling), especially because of Mckenna. BUT, I am very excited for it! I think I can do some good things for the ward!

So, I would love if you all would post an idea or two of the ward activities that you have loved participating in over the years. They can be small activities or great Holiday themed parties, any idea will be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!!!

A couple pictures...

We are back! We had a crazy 42 1/2 hours of traveling home, but we finally made it at 4:30am on Christmas Eve. Our flight from Chicago to San Antonio got canceled. We were going ton have to wait until Christmas day to fly home, but were lucky to get on a very, very last minute flight to Houston. We got to Houston at 12:30am and rented a car. It was crazy, but we made it home in time to enjoy Christmas. All of the stress of traveling made Mckenna sick ad she threw up 8 times on Christmas Eve. We have all had a hard time adjusting back to this time, but are doing a little better tonight.

We spent Christmas Eve night until this morning at Jana and Chad's house. It was so fun spending time with family, and it makes Christmas more fun when you are around kids! Mckenna slept most of the day, so she didn't really open very many presents. She finished opening them today. She got some really cute toys from Grandma and Grandpa Gall and from the Holmes family. The Holmes family also gave us the Guitar Hero World Tour game (just the game not the instruments). That was a lot of fun to play with their family and we look forward to getting the drums and microphone sometime!

Our trip was fantastic, but I feel like I need a vacation from the vacation :-). We were always on the go! We also took like 400 pictures in Paris and 350 in Spain, so I can't share them all on here. I will make a Picasa web album soon so that who ever is interested in seeing them can! For now I will share a couple of my favorites.

This is Jeff waiting for our shuttle bus after we arrived in Paris

I can't tell right now if this was a good picture of the Eiffel tower, but it is one of many. It was SO pretty at night with this blue lights for Christmas. This is what we did our first full day in Paris. It took us so long to get over the jet lag that we only did on thing that first day.

I know that this picture isn't great and that it doesn't look like much, BUT it is a picture of Mckenna getting her diaper changed in the kings bedroom at Versaille. It is just one of those memories that will we always remember. She was being such a crab that day and we couldn't take her stroller into the palace, so we had to carry her. Other than that the place was BEAUTIFUL. I can't believe how old everything is!

AND the number 1 highlight of our trip...SEEING Grandma and Grandpa Jones!!! Mckenna loved playing with them! She was so happy for them and enjoyed all the attention from FOUR adults! Now we just can't wait to have them closer in April!

And I was worried about the food...

I will post pictures later, but I must say that I LOVE the food here- mostly the crepes! YUMMY!!!! I think we ate 3 today :-)--wonder how many more minutes I will have to exercise to work those off. I especially love the plain sugar crepes and will be sad to leave tomorrow (for Spain) only because I can't get a crepe at every corner! We have had some good pizza, pasta, bread and even Chinese food!

We have had a great time in Paris. I will put pictures up later, but we haven't had time to upload over 1000 pictures!!! Mckenna has been wonderful. She is really starting to teeth and constantly wants to chew on everything, but otherwise has done great. She now even has had her diaper changed in the Palace of Versaille- who else could say that?

Lots of you are traveling for Christmas soon, so BE SAFE and have fun!!!

Pictures to come soon!

WE ARE HERE!!!

We have arrived! It is amazing here in France and very cold right now! We have had a crazy day trying to get to our hotel. We thought we had a way to get here by train and then a back-up way of taking a shuttle. From the Disney shuttle we had to get onto the hotel shuttle, well we didn't know that the bus that a nice person pointed us to would be a city bus and not the Marriot shuttle. So, about an hour+ later we were at the second train station, were told that we missed our stop and were told to get off the bus again. Eventually after trying for a taxi and looking at the rest of our options we hoped back onto bus 34 and 16 stops later got on on the RIGHT stop! It was a great experience hangin' out with the locals from Bailly Romainvilliers!!!!

We are so tired, but Mckenna has done AMAZING. She slept for about 5 of the 8 hours on the plane. Jeff and I slept a little on the plane, but we took a long nap after checking in to the hotel. Mckenna is asleep now (it is around 9:30pm France time) and we hope she will sleep for about 7 hours!!!

We are so happy to be here!!! Talk to you all soon!!

WoW

Today Mckenna is 5 months old!! I can't believe it (Happy 5 month birthday to Morgan, too). The time goes so fast and she is growing so much.

The real WOW for this post is that she slept from 10pm until 10am last night- with just a small wake up at 6am for a quick 4 oz. bottle and then she was off to sleep again! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? She also took 3 naps yesterday and one of those was three hours long!!! I think she must be ready to grow again!!!!! I didn't want to wake her up to go walking with my friend, and I am glad I didn't. She is a happy girl this morning and it makes it so much better that Jeff and I are rested too! We hope she keeps sleeping like this on our trip (yeah right with the time change she will be all messed up!)

That is our other news--- We go to Europe on THURSDAY. Yikes, I am getting a little nervous. I am mostly nervous about the food. I don't really know why because I can always get good bread, but the other types of food I have read about do not sound appetizing :-( The flight should be fine, especially because Mckenna will have her own seat! We are excited!!!!!! Off to go get us ready for this big adventure! Expect pictures around Christmas time!!!

Something Funny!

Jeff and I hung out with his sister and brother in law tonight. It was so fun to play games with them while they had 1/2 of their kiddos gone. We were really hungry on our drive home, so we decided that we would stop at Taco Bell for a quick snack. We pulled up at 11:45pm and ordered. After starting our order the woman said back to us...WE ARE OUT OF BEANS.....Wait WHAT? You are Taco Bell- HOW are YOU out of beans!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha....

So tonight, we had beanless Taco Bell. What an experience!

Thanksgiving

I tried my hand at Digital scrapbooking. This is what I ended up with...