I hope they call me on a Mission.........

The wait is FINALLY over! Rueben got his mission call today. We have been waiting for about 3 weeks for it and have been so excited to find out where my brother would serve his mission. Well actually, this is something we have been waiting for almost Rueben's whole life. Funny how I remember talking about Rueben's mission when we were quite young...I remember thinking the day he would know where he was going would never come....and now like 10 years later that moment has finally come!

The package with his call came in the mail while he was at work. My mom was SO excited she called me right after she checked the mail. The remainder of the day has been spent painstakingly waiting (more for him than the rest of us....) until 6:30pm when he could open his call. Dan's family, Mike & Julia, Kyle, and his friend Josh were able to be there with the fam as the call was opened. There were even a few of us on speaker phone including Dan and I. My mom had everyone guess one state side mission and one foreign mission. Dan guessed Rueben would go to Germany or New York, I guessed South Africa or Boise, ID (Rueben had a really funny dream about going there). There were a few more Germany guesses, few more Africa, Tennessee, Scotland, Zimbabwe, Pennsylvania, Guatemala, Brazil....and a TON more! We basically had the whole map covered!

Now to the main point of my blog.....

DRUM ROLL PLEASE....................................................................

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA!!!!!

Home of the Liberty Bell!

SECOND DRUM ROLL PLEASE......................................................

SPANISH SPEAKING!!!!!!!

Now who guessed right??? GABE! Dan's little brother! Actually when my mom read off Gabe's guess something just seemed right about it... I had a good feeling he might go there! And actually....Rueben said the thought of going to Philadelphia had crossed his mind earlier in the day. How cool! All of us were a little surprised I think about the Spanish part! Can you tell I am excited about this??? I only have one sibling so this is quite an exciting thing for my family! He leaves on his two year LDS mission on April 22. We are so excited for Rueben and so proud of him. He is the best brother anyone could ask for. We know he will be a great missionary, he already is a great example to everyone around him. We love you Rueben!!!

IHOP, Killer Bunnies, & a Sierra Cutlass....

You may be wondering what IHOP, Killer Bunnies, and a Sierra Cutlass have in common with each other...well they are the 3 things I forgot to add to the blog when I was posting about our trip to Utah:) All random events, I know, but wanted to add the pictures before I forgot!

On New Year's Day we went with Dan's parents, his 3 younger brothers, and my family to IHOP. It was nice to have both families together visiting at the same time!

We also had a game night with Dan's family and mine at our house the night before we left. Us kids got really into playing "Killer Bunnies". They game lasted long enough that Rueben put it in the same category as Monopoly...meaning it is one of those games that takes way too long that he won't be playing it again anytime soon with us! We had a blast though! Dan even won the game, he was super excited about that!

My family has been short one car for quite some time now. Rueben is getting ready to leave on his mission in the next few months. He actually turned in his call while we were in Utah and it should have already come. Either way, he SHOULD for sure know where he is going on his 2 year mission this week. We are all really excited to find out. Anyways, since Rueben was so close to leaving on his mission when the car quit my family has all been sharing. They decided it wasn't worth buying another vehicle that would only be used for 6 months or so. Sharing cars has been really difficult especially since my mom works 3am-3pm. Usually Rueben would have to wake up and take her to work if he needed the car that day.

So when my grandparents offered to let him borrow their extra car for the next few months! Rueben was ecstatic! You would have thought they had given him a brand new car as a gift! I was with Rueben when we picked up the car and rode with him on the way home. The car is a 1993 Buick Sierra Cutlass. He used to drive a 1990 Chevy Lumina, so this was an upgrade for him. This car even has automatic locks! Funny though...how although this car is newer, it sure looks older! It reminds me of the 1980 Buick Lasabre I drove in high school that was dubbed "The Limo".

Christmas Events 7-10

7) REDNECK OR WHAT???

The Sat after Christmas was Dan's family Christmas party. It was nice to get to see all of his siblings and visit. We had the party at the church, because Dan's family is starting to get a little too big to handle everyone at his parents. One of the nephews' BRAND NEW football got stuck up on top of the backboard on the basketball hoop. We tried to just let the hoop down but for some reason something was wrong with the mechanics of it...so we had to come up with an alternative method of retrieving the ball.

Dan's dad found a pole in the broom closet that was for the vacuum..it had 3 or 4 connecting poles to lengthen it as well. They were NOT very sturdy to say the least...(the boys,well mainly Dan...the rest were mostly just watching and giving advice...) spent like the next HOUR trying to get the ball down. If you look in the picture below, Dan is standing on a ladder, holding the pole, and trying to bump the ball down. The poles were so unsteady that the top one kept on turning and twisting every time he would get close to the ball. The poles also came crashing to the floor several times as well during the process. After what seemed like FOREVER of trying to get the ball down..I was ready to just buy him a new $10 ball! But at that point...the boys were determined to get the ball down. It had nothing to do with the price, rather at that point they were out to prove the world that their redneck tactic would work! Annoying...to say the least! But FINALLY after like a thousand attempts, the ball and poles came crashing down. Was it worth all that time??? Probably not...but it will def bring back funny memories at future Christmas parties!

8) Fun Times.....

We were lucky enough to stay in Utah the whole week after Christmas as well. It was probably our favorite time coming to Utah because we had such a long trip and most of the family was off and available to visit. Usually we are able to see our moms quite a bit but it was SO nice to have more time with Rueben, Dan's brothers, and both our dads. Dan's dad and step mom, Donna, came up to Utah as well for Mike's Homecoming. We had a nice Sunday dinner with them and all the Crandall boys at Cami and Andrew's apartment. I was even able to go shopping a bit with Donna one day while the boys all hung out. We spent a lot of time just relaxing, visiting, playing games, etc..it was really nice. We even went over to Shelby's house (Dan's sister) to watch a movie on their projector screen with a few of the siblings.

Both of us were even able to see some of our friends we don't usually get to see. Mike & Julia came over for dinner one night, we got to go to the Temple with Kyle and Jess, visit with Randy & Megan, and even go out to lunch with a bunch of Dan's friends that we haven't seen since before our wedding! Actually, there were several of them I have never even met!

One day we went with my family to a center that has galactic bowling, galactic mini golf, bumper cars, arcade games, etc. It was really fun. Rueben especially liked the mini golf because it was all about PIRATES!

Dad "Monkeying Around"

Maybe the Alligator is trying to tell him something....they aren't as approachable as Paul & Dan think!

Like I said before, we played games quite a bit with family as well. Dan's brother, Andrew, introduced us to Blockus. His brother has the square version of the game and we ended up buying the triangular version while in Utah, which is quite a bit more challenging than the block version. Dan played the block version of the game with his brothers and dad the Sunday we had dinner with them all. The object of the game is to lay down all your pieces. Whoever has the fewest at the end of the game wins. Andrew won the game that Sunday and was able to lay down all his pieces for the VERY FIRST TIME. He was SO excited, he kept on yelling and screaming and took at LEAST 10 pictures of the game to prove he had FINALLY done it. He has been playing this game for quite awhile so he was quite excited to accomplish this.

A few days later Dan and I bought the game and played it with my family. If you look below...I am the yellow. My VERY FIRST TIME PLAYING (the harder version I might add...) I laid down EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY PIECES. As you can see...everyone else had at least 4 pieces left...I was so excited! I just HAD to take a picture to tease Andrew...sorry Andrew! I couldn't help myself! But just for the record...once you lay down all your pieces..it is all downhill from there. Every time I have played since I seem to do worse and worse...

9) Ice Skating

We went ice skating outside at the Gallavin Center in SLC as well. It was really fun. I have been ice skating quite a few times before but this was my first time ice skating outside and probably the first time I have really gotten a hang of it as well. We went with Dan's Dad, Donna, his brothers, and my brother. It was a lot of fun! We all started out quite bundled up but the sun was out so by the end we were all hot and sweaty and Donna had a big pile of all our coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, etc. next to her on the bench.

Most of the skaters...a few were still out skating when we took the picture. Donna has a better copy with the sun not shining through. I will add that to the blog once I receive it!

You can tell this was taken at the beginning...I still am bundled up in a million bulky layers and FREEZING! Dan on the other hand...well I don't think he even started with a jacket. I swear he is never cold. Actually, I can think of an exception to that...see #10 event:)

Abby got to be quite a good skater by the end of the day! Here she is still holding Kristen's hand but by the end she was going around all by herself without even using the rail. She was definitely better than her Grandpa Crandall! Paul skating was one of the highlight's of our trip! This 50+ year old man is good at every sport you put in front of him it seems. He still runs like 6 miles 7 days a week along with push-ups, sit-ups, etc. He makes a lot of us look bad:) Well...we learned that skating is not his forte. He was wobbling like crazy and kept on holding on the rail. Abby didn't even want Grandpa to take her around because he was going too slow for her! He kept on trying to grab a hold of the boys shirts as they would pass him by. A few times he got lucky and would get a hold of one of them for about 30 seconds and get pulled along the ice sheet until they struggled free of his grip. Rueben has a really funny picture of Paul holding onto Dan. I will have to get it from him.

Rueben flying right by the camera. My dad was a hockey player in high school and I think Rueben inherited his skating skills. He was doing really good! I got to the point that I could skate around without holding the rails...but yeah, I didn't inherit that gene! The boys got into playing tag after awhile and had a lot of fun. No one could seem to out chase Rueben. Dan even hurled himself halfway over the rail one time trying to catch Rueben. On Dan's last attempt to catch him, a little girl (who was skating across the middle of the sheet, Dan would want me to add...instead of around in a circle like everyone else) came out right in front of Dan. He had to swerve majorly to not hit her and face planted it quite bad. At that point...with a few bumps and bruises, Dan was done skating for the day! Overall, we had a great time and want to go back again someday.

10) Snow Tubing

We went professional snow tubing for the first time while in Utah as well. Funny how we both grew up there but had never done this or ice skating outside?? I guess when you actually live somewhere you don't seem to explore your surroundings as much as when you vacation somewhere. Either way, we loved it and hope to go tubing again soon as well!

We used to go tubing as kids on basically any old hill we could find but this was our first time tubing at an actual resort. They have a pulley system that pulls you up the mountain while you sit on the tube. We could have walked faster than it pulled us, but it was nice to not get so worn out just from climbing up to the top! Once you are at the top there are employees that push you off the top of the hill and down you go... I was surprised at how fast we went. The tubing path was all iced over from being used so much.

Waiting in line for a ride up the mountain...

and waiting...

and waiting...

And FINALLY! Going up the mountain....

Rueben going up the mountain...

I had Rueben bend over so I could get a picture of my mom and dad who were right ahead of him...

And last of all....me!

This is a picture from the top of the hill, while we were waiting to go down. The picture doesn't quite show, but it was a lot steeper than I had imagined! My mom and I were a little nervous to go down, while the boys were just the opposite! The workers were spinning everyone as they pushed them off the slope. My mom and I specifically asked not to be spinned, we wanted to see where we were going and wanted to go down as slow as possible...lol. The guy obeyed my mom's wishes but when he got to me he spun me as HARD as he could, harder than anyone else I had seen. I don't know if he forgot or what???? But I was spinning FAST the entire way down, it was scary! My dad was still at the top when I went down the hill. He even said the guy spun me so hard it looked like I was on a spinning ride at the amusement park! By the time I got to the bottom and had stopped screaming, I decided to give it one more try...

The next time I went down with Rueben and Dan. We all held on to each other's tubes. The boys liked the idea of the more weight we had the faster we should go...on the other hand, that made me a little nervous. When we went down we all had a blast! And surprisingly enough...it seemed slower to me (faster to them) after my spinning experience. Even though I was freezing I decided to go down just one more time, and this time my Dad joined us as well.

My mom took this picture at the bottom of the hill. She tried to get one in action, but it didn't quite work. The boys pretended they were still going down, I obviously didn't get the memo:)

P.S. I mentioned in #9 that Dan was cold while tubing...which was true! He thought he would be just fine in his little rain jacket. He had no hat or gloves until the very end when my dad found him an extra pair. It was funny to see him admit to being cold...made me feel better about being freezing!

DONE!

We had a great trip to Utah as you can see. Thanks family for all you did for us while we were there! We are happy we got to see and spend time with everyone! We love you!

#5 & 6 Christmas Events

4) CHRISTMAS WITH THE JASMERS

We spent Christmas Eve night at Dan's family's house. We stayed up way too late and were exhausted the come Christmas morning! Dan's entire family was up and done opening gifts before I even got there last year at 8am. This year...well the first person didn't even wake up until closer to 9am. I was surprised that Jordan and Gabe out of all people weren't up early! I woke up even before them:)

Anyways, it was nice to be able to spend the morning with Dan's family. After us exchanging gifts with them we started preparing a HUGE breakfast, which is their main Christmas tradition. Breakfast wasn't served until after noon...so I guess it was more of a brunch with our time schedule!

Gabe got a Wii Fit for Christmas. It was actually really funny...Gabe is one of the biggest game system addicts I have ever seen. He grumbles anytime he is asked to get off the couch. He has never seemed to have an interest in exercising like the rest of the boys until now! The whole time we were in Utah he was constantly exercising on that thing! Who would have known a game system could get Gabe liking to exercise (well at least on the Wii...Dan, don't get excited about him possibly wanting to run or play basketball with you soon...)

Dan opening Michael's gift. For some reason Dan was having a hard time Christmas morning...he opened like 2 or 3 gifts that weren't for him including one from us to his Dad. Lol...sleep deprivation I guess!

Michael opening a picture of the Argentina Temple that Jordan gave him.

Jeff showing off his Tie...He is definitely one of the hardest people to buy for that I know. Let's just say he gets a lot of red ties and socks during the holiday season.

Dan's Parents

Everyone chipping in to prepare Christmas breakfast.


Dan posing for the camera and pretending to help....jk, he actually did help!

Everyone beginning to serve up. Jeff & Dolores also invited Dan's brother, Andrew, and his wife, Cami, over for the feast.

5) CHRISTMAS WITH THE BLACKS

After we were stuffed from breakfast we headed over to my house to celebrate Christmas with them. Christmas was a little different at their house this year. My parents didn't get presents for each other because they decided they needed to spend the money on redoing the tile in the house, something that they both wanted as well. They also wanted to have a little more money for helping Rueben get out on his mission. So for Christmas, we watched Rueben open presents....lol. It was a little awkward for him, but we broke it up every once in awhile by giving the few gifts Dan and I got for my family as well as what they got for us, to each other. It was just nice to be with my family again on Christmas. Especially since Rueben will be leaving on his mission soon...so it was our last Christmas together for awhile. I miss all the little things Rueben and I used to do on Christmas growing up. Rueben and I were reminiscing a little on Christmas about all the silly memories we have.

My mom works every other Christmas, so every other year we didn't celebrate Christmas until after 5pm. As kids, my mom would always leave one present for us to open in the morning. It was always something that was supposed to occupy us the whole day, like a Nintendo game or something...or least it was an attempt to occupy us! After we took total inventory of EVERYTHING under the tree and tried to figure out what each gift was, we would usually end up at the Cooper's house to play with their presents until we got ours.

I remember one year we got this huge container of perler beads. It was the BIGGEST present under the tree and Rueben was determined to figure out what it was. It was a year my mom wasn't working...but we were still waiting for my dad to wake up so we could open our presents. When my dad owned his jewelry store he would work way into the night on Christmas Eve and was absolutely exhausted on Christmas morning, so even if it wasn't a Christmas my mom was working...we often still had to wait a few hours after we had woken up to open presents. Sometimes my mom would even give us a gift them to keep us quiet so my dad could sleep peacefully. So anyways, like I was saying, Rueben was determined to figure out what the gift was. He kept on picking it up and shaking it and then would set it down and be back again to shake it like 10 minutes later. He did this so many times I think we lost count. My mom kept on telling him, "I wouldn't shake that if I was you....", but he just kept on shaking and shaking it. When we FINALLY got to open the gift, we found out there were thousands of perler beads, about 50 different colors, that were each supposed to be in their own compartment...but instead they were all mixed and scattered throughout the whole thing....needless today Rueben and I as well as the Coopers spent most of Christmas break re-sorting the colors and then creating lots of things with the beads! The Coopers got perler beads that year as well..but ours was WAY bigger than ours, just really mixed up!

Anyways, back to this past Christmas!

Rueb opening one of his gifts. My dad always likes to confuse us by his wrapping...probably because we examined the gifts so closely as kids. Rueben got lots of talks on CD by Jon Bytheway for Christmas. Each was wrapped in a unique way. This one was surrounded by bubble wrap.

Angus closely watching Rueben open gifts. One of Angus's favorite things to do is unwrap presents. I think he just likes tearing things apart. He was staring Rueben down and wining constantly until Rueben let him join in the fun. We always have to wad up paper for him to "open" and throw it 10 feet away or else he "helps" us open all our gifts.

Me & my bud....I miss Angus when we are away! Not so sure about Dan...but I miss him!

Rueben gave this to Dan as a gag gift before he gave him his real gift...my dad and Dan both tease each other relentlessly about their lack of hair...and Rueben just had to join in the fun.

I have to say...it was REALLY funny. Rueben saved his hair in a bottle from when he shaved his fro and turned it into a mullet (he was imitating his swim coach...who has a mullet...). After which, he shaved it entirely for state. I hadn't realized he had kept the hair all year long! It made me laugh.....

My mom and I are both trying to collect nativities from around the world. We had asked Dan's mom if she could look for some while she was in Argentina. My mom ended up surprising me and buying mine for me for Christmas. I absolutely love it! I think it is funny how the people look almost just like the llamas with how they are standing...

This is my mom's set she got from Argentina. I like hers too..I thought it was neat how baby Jesus is sitting on Mary's lap.

Rueben playing on my dad's IPOD. Rueben and I had fun playing all the games on there together while we waited for Christmas dinner to finish cooking.

Dan was dying to watch the Boston Celtics vs. LA Lakers on Christmas. He got to watch some of it while dinner was cooking, it was funny because he thought he would be watching it alone (my dad and brother aren't really into watching sports). But my Grandpa surprised all of us by getting into the game as well! (My mom didn't even know he watched basketball!)

My parents at the end of the night...

It started to snow like crazy Christmas afternoon and into the night. It was snowing so hard my grandpa had to sleepover because the roads were closed...so he couldn't drive home. That has never happened before. It was a little different for us and for him to stay over, but we enjoyed getting to see him a little longer.

My Dad and Dan dressed for the snowy weather. They had to go move a car off the street so the snow plow could come through. It took them a little while just to dig a path out to the car. It was nice to see snow, but boy was it cold!

Our Holiday Top 10 Events

I feel really behind on blogging right now so I thought possibly the easiest way for me to get caught up would be just to type the top 10 things I have been thinking about blogging about!

1) CHRISTMAS IN LOUISIANA

Our Christmas started a little early this year. We celebrated Christmas just the two of us the Sat before Christmas. We knew it would be hard to fit everything we needed to take on the plane to Utah so we decided it would help if we gave our gifts to each other while we were still here. And let me tell you...those suitcases were packed! We definitely couldn't have fit one more thing...

Christmas was small for us this year, we are trying to build our savings as well as we knew we would be spending a lot of money in Utah. So we kept things small and simple, which I liked.

We started off the morning with a yummy full scale Christmas breakfast and read the Christmas story from the Bible.

I got Dan this alligator with a basketball in his mouth for his car. He told me he wanted a cool steering wheel cover...and at first I was totally stumped at what to get for a guy for his car...but in the end I ended up finding a basketball steering wheel cover, this alligator, and I also made him a alligator vinyl sticker for his back window (can you tell he likes alligators and basketball??).

Me cheesing for the camera....Dan surprised me in Utah with the best gift of all...he got me the starter Willow Tree Nativity set, which I loved. He had to give it to me in Utah because he had his mom pick it up for him in order to keep it a surprise. I have to give him credit, when we first got married I knew every single gift he was getting me...but he is getting better and better as time goes on! I was TOTALLY SHOCKED when I opened the gift. I didn't expect it at all.

After we were done opening gifts we relaxed and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas episode. We own the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas episodes and have started the tradition of watching them near or on the holidays.

Us cheesing for the camera in our PJ's.

2) WELCOME HOME MICHAEL!

We arrived in Utah on Christmas Eve morning. Dan's brother, Micheal, returned home from his mission from Argentina that morning as well! His mom picked him up from his mission and their plane arrived about 45 minutes before ours, so they decided to wait for us! So we did the whole "Missionary Greeting in the Airport" thing a little backwards...instead he had to wait to see us come out of the plane to greet us! It was really nice to get to see Micheal again. After we left the airport we went straight to Little Caesar's Pizza for him and then to the church for him to be released from his mission.

Pic of some of the brother's outside the church before he was released.

The boys with the Stake President after he was released.

Michael also had his Homecoming while we were in Utah. We were really excited to be able to be there for it. He did a great job and has grown tremendously in the past two years. Kristen, my sister-in-law, took professional pics of the brothers while everyone was together. It has been over 4 years since the 4 Crandall boys have been together all at once between missions, deployments, etc...so it was really neat. Once I get those pics from her I will add them to the blog.

3) OUR NEW CAMERA!

Our old camera decided it was done being apart of the Crandall household shortly before Christmas so we had to get a new one right before we left to Utah. Everyone seemed to have a good time just making sure it worked!

Rueb has a thing with taking funny pictures of himself....he pulls on his facial skin to loosen it and then shakes his head really fast and snaps the picture...they always come out funny, this is the one I liked the best that he took while checking out our new camera.

#4-10 to follow...my lunch hour is up but hopefully I can finish the rest by tomorrow!