Being married to a full-time student has its perks. He gets 9 weeks off a year, and all holidays. We have enjoyed that. Two of those weeks were for Christmas. Before Christmas, we headed up to St. George with our friends the Welch's. It ended up raining pretty much non-stop the entire time. But that didn't stop us from venturing out in the rain, at least a little bit.

The kids loved the puddles, especially Teslyn.

The boys got lots of video game time, both the big boys and their little boys. To change it up, we took them bowling.

And here they are, Owen and his buddy Jackson posing for the camera.

The week after Christmas Nick and I decided to take the kids to see Hoover Dam. Nick has never been there, and it has been years since I have. We picked a very cold and windy day, so we just got out long enough to take a few pictures from the parking lot.

We decided to stop at an over-look of the lake to show the kids. We were out of the car for maybe 30 seconds. It was waaayyy too windy, and really cold. I know, I know, we have become wimpy desert dwellers. This is the one shot I got there:

This is the new bridge built for traffic to and from Arizona, so they don't have to cross over the dam and deal with the tourist traffic that already exists. We accidentally went for a drive into Arizona on it before finding the dam, thanks to Tomtom. He doesn't know about the new exits and stuff yet. He'll learn.

Here's the lake from the window, while driving over the dam.

We also ate lots of Christmas cookies during the break.

Teslyn discovered a love for stickers, and sticking them all over herself and everywhere.

And she also decided she wants to use utensils to eat her food. She is slowly getting better at it.

Las Vegas got a dusting of snow, but the mountains got lots.

We tossed the Christmas tree, to be recycled.

One night on the way home from dinner, Nick was playing with the camera to document the facial hair he grew while on break from school. It was a full beard (well, as full as he can grow!) but here it is as a goatee. I told him to take silly pictures of all of us as I drove....

...but Teslyn and I were the only ones that got silly!