This year we were blessed not only to have Stewart home with us on Christmas Day (unlike the last two years where he has had to work on Christmas Eve and Day) but we also got to spend Christmas with Stewart’s sisters Camille and Tasia along with Camille’s husband Juan and their kids, Blaz, Sam and Nick. They Traveled to Mexico the week before and said if the weather was good they would come home though Colorado and stop by Cheyenne to spend the Holiday with us. Needless to say I prayed a lot that the weather would be amazing for their travels… and we could not have asked for better driving conditions for them!

Everyone arrived late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Sophie was super excited to see her cousins and everyone else was excited to get out of the car for a few days. I should say Stewart and I were also excited to see everyone especially Tasia whom we had not seen in at least 3 years. After we helped them unpack and get settled, we all had dinner and then later that night we played a crazy suranne wrap gift ball game (I don’t know what else to call it) and had an epic dance party. It was the perfect way to tire our kids before we sent them off to bed so Santa could come. 

On Christmas morning, we let the kids wake up at their own speed inviting them to come out and see what Santa had brought them and letting them play with their Santa gifts while everyone was still waking up for the day. After breakfast we all opened our gifts under the tree and then spent the rest of the day playing with our new treasures. This year Santa brought Sophie a Doc. McStuffin’s kit and a Dr. Coat. I probably should not have to say this but I will anyway just in case you were wondering we all received a lot of checkups that day :) Santa also brought us the game Pie Face. The Pardo boys got some cool Star Wars gear and Sam got a stuffed penguin that he named Cuteness Heartness.  I suppose the best gift we got that day besides the reminder of an Eternal Savior having been born to save the world, would be being together with family it was priceless. 

Love Sophie's face in this family selfie

In the afternoon while things were calm Stewart, Juan and Tasia went to go watch the movie Star Wars, while Camille and I stayed home with the boys and Sophie. When they got home from the movie we had a nice sit down meal together and learned all about the movie. After dinner we played a game of Pie Face and had another dance party before the kids went to bed. Then we adults played a round of B.S. where we all learned that Camille is REALLY good at lying because she kept winning and Stewart is really bad at lying and calling peoples bluffs because he ended up with at least one half of the deck each game.  The rest of us were just so so at the game, I guess that is not a bad thing… right?

The Day after Christmas was spent with a trip to the Laramie County Library and shopping for those who wanted to venture out to the shopping areas.  Tasia woke up not feeling great that day so she spent most of the day at home. Stewart and I took Blaz, Sam and Sophie to the library while Juan, Camille and Nick went shopping (crazy people). Later that afternoon while kids were napping Stewart and Tasia ventured out to a local trendy Coffee shop to reacquaint themselves. I think they had a great visit… they never said otherwise. By the end of the day we were all tired so we all went to bed early with no complaints from anyone. We did manage to take a group picture before we all hid the hay. 

On Sunday Morning the Pardos and Tasia got back into the van and headed off on the last leg of their Christmas break adventure. And us North’s got ourselves ready and went to church, thus ending our fun Christmas Holiday with family. 

Getting ready to leave for home

Stewart North Family Christmas Letter

December 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope this Christmas card and newsletter find you all well. As the year comes to a close we enjoy reflecting over all that has happened during the year.  It is a time for us to thumb through the calendar and journal entries to jog our memories  of the many things that have happened over the last 12 months so that we can rehash them for you and reminisce the good times. We have been extremely blessed this year and while this year was not all happy moments most of them were and for that we are grateful. We hope you, like us, will take time to review the past years events and count your many blessings and of course we hope you will find too many to count.

Stewart finished his second year in his family residency program with the University of Wyoming at Cheyenne. He started his third and final year of residency July 1^st of this year and will complete his residency June 30, 2016. While he has loved some rotations more and others less, he is learning many things that will influence him when he graduates. He spent a few days in the hospital before Thanksgiving, but has recovered well and is back at work. We are looking into jobs in Southern Idaho for after graduation but nothing is official yet. When he is not working, which is rare, he enjoys dabbling in ameture astronomy and growing and tending  plants.

Becky started work as a nanny for three kids (ages 12, 9, and 5) two days a week back in January.  She is able to take Sophie to work with her, which works out great because Sophie and the five year old boy have a great time playing together. When she is not working she is visiting with friends or working on some sort of craft. She is still working in the primary organization at church as the first counselor and is finally finding joy in this responsibility.

Sophie seems to be growing up in leaps and bounds. She turned 5 this year, and seems so grown up these days. She still loves taking dance lessons and LOVED performing in her spring recital where she got to perform her clown dance. Besides dance, Sophie does a lot of playing and home schooling with her mom. This year she is working on her penmanship, simple math, and she is learning to read (when she wants to).  She too has found a love of backyard astronomy, and gets up during the night with Stewart to look at the stars.  She can point out and name a few of the constellations in the nights sky.  Along with her other jobs around the house, Sophie is responsible for making one dinner meal per week. She works along side her mom learning kitchen safety and has made many yummy dishes. Her parents love her dearly and cherish this time with her deeply, it wont be long now and she will be starting school.

As a family this year we took a trip to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore and the sights in the area.  We camped at a KOA camp near Mt. Rushmore which ended up not being our favorite campsite. But the use of their laundry-mate came in handy when our sleeping bags were soaked after a heavy downpour.  While in the area we visited, Mt. Rushmore, Bear Town USA, Mt. Rushmore Caves, Needles Canyon, and other nature areas. We enjoy camping as a family, but the next time we go Becky has decided we are going “real” camping and not to some designated, curated camp ground again. Guess we will see how that goes.

In conclusion we feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to spend another year together. How grateful we are for a loving Heavenly Father who sent His son to earth so that we may live again with Him one day. May we remember the true meaning of the season and take time to reflect on how blessed we are to have that knowledge.

Many Hugs- Stewart, Becky and Sophie        

We got a lot of snow here this week, and since we live in Cheyenne the wind loves to blow it around. I shoveled the driveway three times on Tuesday, the first time was to clear the fallen snow off and the second two times were to clear the driveway of all the snow that was blown back onto it because of the constant “breeze”. I think we got a good 12 plus inches. I was suppose to Nanny that day as well but the kids were sick so I did not have to go, which I was grateful for since I don’t enjoy driving in the snow… ever.  And since I was not planning on going anywhere in that weather, I told Stewart to take the Honda Pilot to work when he left that morning but he was sure he would be fine in his little Suzuki Forenza.  He ended up coming home around noon to trade cars with me since the roads were ugly and he kept almost getting stuck.

After a few days, I pointed out to Sophie that we had some fun snow drifts in our backyard and she insisted on going outside to play in them. So I dressed her up in her snow gear and sent her outside to play. She had good time digging in the snow and tromping through the snowdrifts. I on the other hand stayed inside where it was nice and warm.   

We had are annual Christmas Graham Cracker house making FHE again this year. We do this every year and always try to invite another family over to join us.  We let the kids work on their masterpieces individually but the couples have to work together as a team. It is always fun to see what we can come up with, some years Stewart and I are creative and other years we just don’t have it in us to make something amazing.  This year was one of those un-creative years for us except for my amazing duck I made out of M&Ms. Other than that we did not do so well, but we still had fun. Our friends, Matt and Angela Freeman, however were on fire and did amazing. They put us to shame… but next year we have a lot of good ideas for our Graham Cracker house because of them.  

Sophie and her friends, Ashlynn and Brooklyn Freeman, had fun decorating their pre-assembled houses with lots of candy and frosting as well as eating as much candy as they could when us adults were not pay attention.  It was fun to listen to them giggle and have fun with each other. 

We took overnight trip to Denver this past Friday and Saturday. We had a free nights stay at a hotel on the South side of Denver near IKEA, so we decided to use it up. Stewart and I wanted to go to the temple and we also wanted to take Sophie to the Children’s Museum and let her swim at the hotel, while we traded off times going to the temple. It was a lovely weekend! We got to the Children’s Museum around 12:30 in the afternoon on Friday and did not leave until they closed at 4pm. We had a blast, even though we were unable to do all the stuff there was to do there. If we were closer I would totally buy a season pass and take Sophie there all year round (especially in the winter).

While we were there we went climbing up a three story structure at the Altitude exhibit. I was weary of how many times the helmets they made us wear were cleaned so they gave me a hair net, which I was thankful for… even if I looked odd. 

Next we went to the Bubbles exhibit and played there. Sophie loved the bubbles and enjoyed making them, popping them and watching them evaporate.  We had to practically pull her out of the room to explore more of the museum. 

After the bubbles we walked over to the Kinetics exhibit and built a continuous ball track where the balls would get sucked up into a tube at the end of the track and then funneled over to the start of the track again. We all had fun constructing our track. We also played in the ball drop zone and tried to catapult a ball up into the ball tube by jumping on the lever. We learned (or rather confirmed) that Sophie is not strong enough to accomplish the ball catapult. 

Later in the day Sophie and I attended a cooking class, where we learned to make banana bites. Sophie and I got to use a knife to slice our bananas, and rolling pins to mash our graham crackers into crumbs. After we did the first two steps we then put our banana pieces into a plastic bag with the graham cracker crumbs and shook the bag to coat the banana slices.  At the end we had the option to add coco powder or coconut to our bananas for extra flavor. We both had fun, even if the recipe was a lot simpler than we are used to making together at home.  

After cooking class we then went to the art area where both Stewart and Sophie painted pictures and played with clay.

Once we tired of the art exhibit we headed off to the Big Backyard area where, Sophie was able to run around a play dressed up as an ant first and then as an opossum. She loved crawling through the large tunnels and pretending to be her character. She easily played there for 30 minutes until we told her it was time to move on to another area of the museum.  I asked her what her favorite part of the museum was when we left for the day and she told me the Big Backyard was her favorite, and while I did not get to play dress up with her I would agree it was a cool area. 

Our next stop after playing in the Big Backyard area was the Energy exhibit and then the Water exhibit. At the Energy exhibit we played in the wind tunnel and then shot off paper rockets off trying to outdo each other and get ours to fly the farthest.  It was a lot of fun.   

At the Water exhibit we triggered a thunderstorm, played in a whirlpool with plastic balls, launched a geyser after filling a bucket up with water, and walked through a waterfall. 

By the time we left the museum we were all played out except for Sophie who made it clear she wanted to go swimming at the hotel by reminding us every five minutes about going swimming... silly girl. Once we got to our hotel and got settled we ate dinner and then I went to the temple while Stewart stayed with Sophie and went swimming. The temple was quiet and just what I needed. When I got back to the hotel I joined Sophie on the bed who was eating popcorn while watching a movie on the television.  She looked so relaxed so of course I wanted to join her. 

The next morning Stewart got up early and went to the temple while I stayed behind with Sophie. Sophie wanted to go swimming again before Stewart came back, so after breakfast that is what we did. Except I did not did not swim the water was way too cold for me. Sophie on the other hand switched back and forth from the hot tub and the cold pool without batting an eye at the different water temperatures, oh to be a kid again.

When Stewart got back to the hotel, we checked out and drove across the street to IKEA to wonder around before we headed back to Cheyenne. We always like to explore and dream of what we would and would not like in our future home, sometimes it is just fun to dream. 

After our adventures at IKEA we headed back to Cheyenne. I am glad we took the time to go to the temple and explore some of the fun things Denver has to offer before we move next summer and we hope to go back and do a few more things on our bucket list.