Christmas Vacation Part 4

Our big gift from Jared's parents was a night out!

And it was much needed. 

But that morning we went and got our family photos taken! This Christmas was the first time in a while that all the family was together and they wanted an updated family picture. 

Everyone looked great and Aubrey was fantastic! We got a look at one of the pictures and Aubrey was so cute and smiling! The photographer was so good with her and knew a few tricks to get her attention! I'll have to keep them in mind if we get pictures taken of her in the future. 

We put Aubrey down for a nap and headed to check in to our hotel in downtown Salt Lake and head to our movie. 

Finally, we got to see the second Hunger Games movie! Hooray! And it was so good! But we were late and got awful seats. The ones in the very front. I started to feel very sick, so Jared was amazing and stood by me while I sat in the entrance way against the wall. He was so sweet and stayed next to me the whole time. From now on, I plan to get to movies SUPER early just so I can get a good seat. 

Our special dinner was Sonic! We've had a gift card for Sonic for months, but there isn't one near us. So we saw there was one in Salt Lake and ate there! Because I was still feeling a little sick, we went back to the hotel and just relaxed. It was wonderful! 

We ordered breakfast to come in the morning and it was pretty good. 

Probably the best part of our night and half-day away was going to the Salt Lake Temple. We hadn't been since the one time we went to get married and sealed together forever. I'm still very happy with my choice of eternal companion and it was awesome going back to the temple with him. 

We did a live endowment session, which was so amazing. I can't even describe how great it was! And sitting in the celestial room was so special for us. We had a mix-up with our wedding time so we spent A LOT of time in that room on our wedding day. It was wonderful being able to sit in that same room again. 

It was time to go home and prepare to see my extended family. 

Because we were spending most of the time with Jared's family, I thought it would be nice to have one night with my family already out there. We decided to do a dinner and visit with everyone. 

They made my favorite dinner of chicken wrapped in bacon and it tasted delicious! Aubrey had so much fun playing with my baby cousins, Sydney and Nora. Sydney is 4 and Aubrey had so much fun chasing her around, not really understanding the rules of tag or hide-in-seek. 

Everything was so much fun, but it was time to head back home for Aubrey's bed time. We like to be pretty consistent when putting her to bed, and it was a half hour drive back to Jared's family. 

I love my family very much and it was fun seeing them. 

Aubrey wasn't happy to go to bed. She missed running around. I broke our biggest rule and went in to get her out of bed to let her run around some more. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles didn't mind her being up late! The second time we put her down, she was down for good. 

But this is about when her cold began to really kick in. Made the next few nights pretty rough.