[1/2/12] Monday Memories: Christmas break 2011

It has been a wonderful two weeks. Two very short weeks, for sure, but two great weeks nonetheless.

Here's the run-down of our Christmas break:

Kam got home from BYUI on Sunday, December 18. It was soooo good to have her home!

I went with John to Tennessee - him for business, me for nothingness (which I totally love from time to time!). We went to dinner one night with two of his customers and their wives, the next night with one of his managers and her husband. It was good to get away for a few days. And we celebrated our 26th anniversary while we were gone.

We've been playing games and watching Burn Notice on Netflix, as well as some other movies.

We went and saw this:

Oh my goodness. Talk about intense. For most of the movie Kam and I were clutching onto each other. We don't handle intense very well sometimes.

I finished these for my new nephew and niece:

My new niece is now four months old. I started her blanket back in September. It was a busy semester. But since she lives in Utah, she should still get several months of use out of her baby blanket.

I read this:

The girls and I made these:

They turned out really cute! Kailen wore hers (on the left) to church today.

The girls and I went on our Kelley Girls Annual After Christmas Shopping Trip. It was fun even though the mall was insanely packed.  I really look forward to these shopping trips with my girls.

We wanted to go play tennis and go golfing during Christmas break, but it was so rainy that we never got the chance.  We're hoping we might be able to play tennis today before the kids go back to school tomorrow.

Kam and I made caramels Saturday night. Making caramels at Christmas time is one of our family traditions, and we have missed only a couple of years since our family began.  We were a little late making them this year because my mom sent some of her deliciously awesome candy and we've been eating that. We ate all the caramels she sent and decided we hadn't quite had our caramel fix for the year, so we made some more. Kam's going to take some back to Rexburg with her tomorrow.

We have some fun making-caramels stories. Our first ever house had a gas stove, and since I'd never cooked with a gas stove before, there was a bit of a learning curve. That first Christmas we made our caramels, which always involves a lot of stirring. We thought they were done and put them in the pan. When they'd cooled we went to cut them and they were so hard that the knife went right through the pan!  

Batch #1 gone.

So we made another batch. When I was moving the pan to the table to pour them into the dish, one of the handles broke and the caramels went all over the floor.

Batch #2 gone.

So we made another batch and I carefully placed them on top of Kam's little kitchen, where I thought they'd be be out of harm's way, to cool. Well, evidently my perception of "harm's way" was incorrect, because they got knocked off of Kam's kitchen.

Batch #3 gone.

We decided we were not going to be outdone by some silly caramels, so we made another batch.

Batch #4 survived.

Yep. It's been a wonderful two weeks.

Now, back to "reality."

*Image courtesy of amazon.com