The official update

I am really embarrassed at the need to clarify my last post. Kyle didn't write it, I did! I truly thought everyone would know it was me, and I even assured Kyle as much.

In fact, when sending a holiday letter around er, the holidays was a possibility, he and I had discussed how fun it would be to write it from his somewhat myopic perspective. With Christmas behind us, he didn't think a letter was still in the offing. So for me to have done it in blog form mortified him. (Not the content, mind you, because that's all true.)

"Now everyone's going to think I write a blog!" he lamented. Oh, the horror! (Joining anything remotely akin to his mother's interests = kiss of death.)

"Don't worry, Kyle, they'll all know it was me."

Oops.

In honoring Kyle's wish to set the record straight, I also don't want to crush the believers. Thank you for championing Kyle and cheering him on ...  no matter who's speaking his mind. ;)



And now on to a non-comprehensive update of what we've been up to in my three months of blog hiatus:

We

• Got exhausted climbing the steps of the St. George Temple with cute cousin Greenliee.

• Made Elise blush during an Apples to Apples game.  (Something to do with a card labeled "boyfriend" and the notorious tease, Uncle Jeff.) Isn't that gray and white wall in the background striking? My creative sister-in-law Madison stenciled it.

• Filled our St. George trip with more games. I'm still not sure whether my Jeff pitched the idea of our trip, THEN planned hikes with his friends; or if he had the hikes already planned and eased me into the idea with the chance to see my brother. No matter. It was a fun trip. He took Kyle and Emma on one of the hikes. Later the wife of one of Jeff's hiking friends asked me how Emma was doing. What?! Turns out they dropped her and her rappel line. But because she had landed in the creek she didn't think anything was amiss. Tough girl. 

• Had fun with pumpkins. Kissing, mimicking, upstaging.

•Vowed to NEVER AGAIN go visiting teaching the week of an election. 

• Captured a rare moment of sisterly affection. (Yeah, Elise's expression is a clue.)

• Breezily celebrated birthday 11.

• Quietly turned 41 (in the shadows!)

"Happy Birth ay" greetings were brought to me by my darling friend Melinda, and a D-snitching child who still won't fess up. (I think it was Emma.)

• On Dec. 14, cried, cried and cried some more because of the school shooting in Connecticut.

• Dismissed end-of-the-world theories with this wisdom from Emma: "Well, if the Mayans couldn't predict the end of their own civilization, why should we believe them?"


• Scratched our heads at Kyle's parking job. After finally clinching the good student discount and landing on our insurance, we let him drive. The very first day, he took Emma to mutual, came home and lodged the car in the garage. You couldn't back out onto the driveway. This is the doorframe into the house. We had to remove shelving and the freezer to make room for Jeff's 40-minute journey of carefully angled short spurts forward and back. Hoo-boy.

• Celebrated a wonderful Christmas with our families, and look forward to a great 2013. I hope it involves all of you in many happy ways.