Jay and Julie: Christmas 2025, Utah trip

For Christmas we went to Utah to visit Jay's parents, Uncle Andy, Aunt Natalie and Uncle Chris and Sakura, Seth, Liam, Uncle Steve and Stacy, Clara, Jonah, and also Daniel and Alicia and Henry and Max. Oh, and all their pets.

The kids are so excited about new fun sheets my parents got them.

Fun at home

Get up and immediately and go to your new flower making set

A paint pouring clock set

Making magnetic slime

Miri and Daddy collected magnetic sand. . . stuff from the wash. Magnetite? Something.

Since we left to Utah before Christmas, we still had a lot of gifts under our tree to unwrap when we got home. In fact, we drove home in 2 days, and the first day we drove 9 hours through Vegas and the second day we only had 3 hours. The second day was surprisingly rough -- we took either 2 or 3 potty breaks, but we managed to get home and get the rental mini van unpacked, and then get new gifts, like this iconic giraffe that Wendy adored. Jay found it on sale.

Playing Pop, Pop, Pinata!
So before playing we had some discussions about how it would feel when we didn't win and how we could try being happy for each other. Well the girls got along better than I've ever seen them with a board game. It really was the best Christmas gift to me. The game does move fast, so there were lots of rounds of it, so everyone got to win.

She was upset that the cocoa didn't give her a really good mustache, so she tried the whipped topping. Also notice the Santa Claws shirt with the T rex on it.

Nat really knocked this suit gift out of the park

I go into their rooms when they usually would have been up, but they were both so asleep and in the same position, just like when they were babies.

I think this may be the only photo I got of anything when we saw Steve and his family. Whoops. We met at their new house they just bought (hence the fun places to hide). They brought Paco, their dog, since they know we love dogs. Then we went to do mini golf and an indoor playground and eat soft pretzels and cotton candy.

This photo doesn't capture the low visibility we had for a bit on our way back to Tucson. Also, we finally had snow during the drive, so we stopped and let them play until the started crying that their hands were cold. But they got their snow. I missed getting photos of that, too.

Stupid Skip It (Flooyes brand skip ball with 900 reviews and 4.5 stars out of 5) broke within minutes of using it. But Miri was getting it.

Fun logic puzzle. Some were really hard

My kids all enjoyed this one. The "M&Ms" are all inside the plastic and you move them with a magnet, so they don't make a mess.

Christmas morning. Miri was still wearing a nightgown that had been Sakura's. Miri loved it. She got to wear it because when we were at their house the day before, they played on a playground after it had rained and she went down the slide and got soaked.