We packed our CR-V (to the brim) and drove down to Arizona
for Christmas. I was nervous about
William surviving the ten hour drive but he did better than expected. We lasted three hours without movies and then
used our new DVD player to play his favorite shows (Curious George, Despicable
Me & Frozen).
William had fun with his cousins Jackson, Abbie, and baby Kaylee. We hit up the parks, Grammies backyard, train museum, and other festivities. Watching William play with his Jennings cousins got me excited for him to have a sibling. I was worried how William would respond to 3 month old baby Kaylee, but he was “soft” on her and loved giving her kisses. There is hope!
We had a busy Christmas Eve with hiking around Papago Park, sports, hot tubing, and the sugar cookie decorating contest. That evening we switched gears and headed to the Lewis home for dinner and a musical program.
We spent the night over there and William was the first one up around 7:00. We waited an hour for the Reber girl cousins to wake up and then the Christmas present party started. The Lewis’ had about 20 people staying at their house on Christmas Eve, so it was crazy to say the least! William had fun, but also wanted all the girls’ toys including baby dolls, electronic birds and Elsa pens.
We had a short Christmas day back at the Christensen’s where
we said bye to the Jennings and moved over to the Lewis’ for the next
week. The week consisted of lots of
food, people, sports and games.
Basketball, tennis, volleyball, golf, racquetball, hiking, soccer, you
name it and it was played. William had
fun with his four Reber girl cousins, especially hitting it off with their
oldest, Ella.
The other highlight of the week was seeing Ben’s sister,
Jennie, return from his mission and get to spend time with her again.
Ben and I celebrated our anniversary on a smaller scale this year. We hiked Squaw Peak with the Lewis family in the morning. Then we went to dinner at Oreganos (where we had our first date exactly 6 years ago) and out shopping.
New Year’s Eve consisted of time with both of our families and then noise makers and fireworks at the Lewis’. William loved all the commotion and especially the sparklers he got to hold.
We stayed in Arizona a few extra days than we had planned ** and got to enjoy some last minute family time, nice weather and good food. William got sick the day before we left and didn’t get over it for the whole next week. We had lots of fun being together with family and with our little family of 3. Now it’s time for baby girl to come.. any day now!?!
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| Poor sick William boy |
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| Oh yeah, and they forgot to put the CR-V sticker back on our car. Haha |
**On Decemer 21 we got rear-ended in Mesa on our way to a
Christmas dinner party. We were bummed
but it was obviously the other guy’s fault, we had a witness and a police
report, so we weren’t too worried about it.
Ben took it to a shop the next day and they said they could have it done
before we needed to drive back to Utah on January 2nd We got a rental car and didn’t worry about it
until our departure day got closer. As
we checked up on the shop they seemed concerned they needed more time on the
car and we agreed to giving them an extra day+ to finish the job. The damages came out to be around $11,000. I went to pick up the car on Saturday January
3rd and no one was at the body shop.
Long story short, they weren’t close to finishing the job. With the next BYU semester starting and our
time running short, we had to drive our rental car back to Provo and left our
car at the shop in Arizona. A week later
the shop still had our car with promises of shipping it to Provo and paying for
our rental car. It was a nightmare to
say the least. By this point the guy who
hit us’ insurance company made up a story that it was our fault, we caused the
accident and refused to take fault or pay for damages. It took a week+ to get our witness to write a
statement and get the police report to come through. We are still waiting to hear if the other guy
still refuses to take fault and if we have to get a lawyer involved. Almost a month later we finally got a random
neighbor’s family member to drive our car back to Utah (after waiting until 9
pm the day before to get the shop to let our car go). Now there are a few issues that are still
wrong with the car but I can at least deal with them in Utah and we have a
second car. NOTE to self: don’t ever get
in an accident in another state. Nor do
it over a holiday, busy weekend. A month later, to the day, I'm still working with the insurance company and had an appraiser come to our house today.
