Christmas in winter!

ahhhhh, a white christmas! it is astounding how important environmental cues are for the holidays. any aussie visiting the US in winter would feel like it just wasn't christmas without summer temps and, no joke, shrimp on the barby. but snow and appropriate weather for santa's red suit warmed our hearts... that and seeing a LOT of family.

we arrived stateside and headed directly for salt lake city, where grandma and grandpa gardner helped us to get settled at great-grandma's house and great - truly great - aunt katie stayed with us for a full week. payton went to a conference in san francisco while the kids and i went to oklahoma and visited a bunch of whitehurst and hall family. back in slc for christmas, the entire lund clan gathered at great-grandma's house for a fantastic celebration. we missed payton's aunt lori terribly; she passed away earlier this winter. jerome and the boys - ty, cade and birch (we missed you, erica!) - made it up before christmas, so nova got to do some serious partying with her cousins.

after slc, a quick trip down through grand junction - shortened by the need to get over the passes before a huge san juan snow storm arrived - to durango for new year's and finally to santa fe before flying back to australia. whirlwind! blizzard! but, oh, so fun to see everyone.

merry christmas!

a walk around sequoyah club with mom, uncle buck, theo, nova, lindsey, canon, sylvia, lauren and aunt becky. brrr.

canon and sylvia.

nova playing ukelele with uncle buck.

nova was introduced to the world of epic sword fights by her cousins. ty (to the right of nova) did a lot of stabbing and killing and nova tended to come around and "heal you" with her sword. venus. mars.

canon lounging with grandaddy in durango.

lauren and sylvia

canon! nice hair

auntie iris came over for a couple days and we got some cross country skiing in...

driving the tractor with theo and grandaddy! super cool!

nova got a major haircut!

the blokes.

this incredible quilt is a handmade beauty by nikki childers - commissioned by whitney! thank you both, again, for such a special gift for canon.

we re-enacted part of lord of the rings with the kids in durango. this is the part where some elf and some knight are running... somewhere.

the boys playing guitars

i think this is a sweet picture of mom and lauren. it may be snowy outside, but the back deck, on a sunny southwest day, is warm and delightful, even in winter.

our cousin emilee and her daughter vivian upped the baby-ness around the house for new year's. nova was in heaven with canon, sylvia and vivian to dote on.

party like it's 1999...

holiday hangover. nice matching sweaters, guys.

ah, snow angels cure everything.

bad. ass.

i wore these pajamas when i was around nova's age - crazy! and i had to stick this pic in because i think it is the ONLY one - of all these christmas pictures - that has a christmas TREE in it!

we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! we sure did!