Christmas Vacation in Arizona

This year Brian's whole family got together in Arizona at his sister Stacy's house for Christmas. It was a great time (despite getting really sick just before coming home). It was so nice to see everyone there and enjoy catching up with each other and sharing such a precious time of the year. Here's Travis and Lucas out on the trampoline with some of their cousins.

Here's little Marcus (his first Christmas). We caught him trying to get into all the presents on Christmas Eve... He looks pretty stunned that we caught him huh! (in case you can't tell, this photo was staged)
We had a Christmas program on Christmas Eve. Here's how much Lucas got out of it. He's quite a wild kid at times.

Here's Grandpa Vance holding Marcus Vance.

Here's Marcus' gift from Santa. He enjoys tickling (more like pounding) the ivory.

Here's Travis' loot from Santa. He really wanted a 2 wheel scooter, a rescue helicopter, and a watch. Santa came through, it must have been because Travis got his letter delivered directly to Santa (see the helicopter blog post) and early in the season.

Lucas' main gift was a large set of Thomas tracks and train. He seemed more interested in Marcus' gift until we asked him about his train from Santa. He responded "what train?" So we showed him and he was quite happy. Funny that it didn't register with him at first seeing the box.

One evening we visited the Mesa Temple to see the Christmas lights on display on the grounds.

Here's a cousins pic at the temple. From L to R it's Audrey (Stacy's 4th), Jasmine (Lisa's 2nd), Natalya (Lisa's 1st), Travis, Marcus, Ashley (Stacy's 2nd), Britton (Lisa's 3rd), Emily (Stacy's 1st), Jacoby (Stacy's 3rd), Lucas, and Wesley (Stacy's 5th).

One day Brian took 6 kids out geocaching. Good thing Jacoby came to provide assistance with all these kids. We found three geocaches and had a good time.

We often went to parks while we were there. Here's Brian and Marcus on a bridge at one park. Marcus wanted to be held most of the time he was awake. It wasn't too much of a problem since there were many willing hands to hold him, though since we got back home it's been a bit hard.

Here's our monkey up in the tree.

Now for the 5 videos in this post (just a reminder to family, you cannot view these in your email, you have to visit our blog to watch them).

This first one is of Travis flying a plane that Brian got from his sister Stacy. All the men got them and we had a good time flying them at the park.

Here's a first for Marcus. He rolled over somewhat consistently when he was just 3 months old. However, we finally got him on video, so this is the first video recording of him rolling. He didn't seem too happy about it.

One day we went to a nearby gymnastics open gym time. It was a lot of fun for the kids, especially when they jumped into this big foam pit. It reminded Brian of his gymnastics days. Here's Lucas doing some fairly impressive gymnastics, especially when considering he hasn't been taught how to sommersault.

After seeing Travis do this jump, he should be plenty ready for his first jump off the diving board this coming summer.

Last but not least, Brian's sister's dog had puppies just past midnight on the 23rd (really they were born on Christmas Eve). Their dog had 5 puppies so it was fun to see these little cute puppies. Travis and Lucas each got a chance to hold them and as you can see, it made them quite nervous.