Hallo-Thanks-Mas-4th-of-St Patricks-tines-New Years Evester

Before Rick and Georgia left on their mission to Austria we wanted 

to have one last family get together. We decided to combine all the holidays 

and have a crazy PARTY!

We had the party at Bryan and Jenna's house in Highland and Jenna

had fun decorating with our holiday mash up theme.  

She made this cute banner with different postcards that had all the 

holidays represented.  Her kitchen table had the Charlie Brown Christmas 

Tree along with some Halloween, Easter, and Valentine candy.

We were so lucky that Brady got to come to the party! He had
a work conference in Florida and was able to schedule his flight so
he had a layover in Utah on the way back home to Alaska.
The only thing that would have been even better is if Becky and
the kids could have come too!

 Eating our feast...

Brenna hanging out with Mabel and Myah 

at the kid's table.

All the siblings and their spouses wrote a letter to 

Rick and Georgia about our feelings regarding them

going on a mission. (and just how much we love them in general!) 

Lindsey compiled them into a book

with lots of pictures and we gave it to them as an 

early Christmas gift they could take with them.

 They loved it...those are happy tears. :)

We played a few of our traditional Christmas games:

The Candy Bar Game

White Elephant Gift Exchange

Their farewell talks in church were wonderful - they

were meant for this calling!

 They have been in Austria for over a month now and they seem to

be adjusting really well. The young single adults they are working 

with love them (of course!) and they are having all sort of fun adventures 

exploring the city and learning the culture. (and the language)  

Georgia said sometimes people speak so fast in German it's even hard 

for Rick to understand and he speaks pretty well!  

We skyped a few weeks ago and they gave us the tour 

of their cute little apartment.

Clock Tower in the background in the city of Graz, Austria

Lindsey took this picture of them right before they left and 

I love it. We sure miss them but technology helps with that!

We love being able to see each other via Google Hangout, 

email them, and call pretty much whenever our schedules align.

(they are about 8 hours ahead of us)