Christmas

Dillon and I were really happy to get to spend Christmas break in Utah. We traveled for Halloween and Thanksgiving- which we absolutely loved- but we're happy to get to relax and stay in this time. Dillon worked the first week of break, and I was running around doing errands and checking things of my to do list.

We went to my Mom's house on Christmas Eve to spend time with her and Tori (PJ was in Minnesota with Dad). We made a big turkey dinner and all sat down to eat (I was right, as good as it was, Dillon's birthday dinner was better). Tori got a VERY generous Secret Santa gift so she went and bought my mom the new Planet of the Apes movie which she had been dying to see. We all really liked it.



Wilson tradition says you can open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning, but we had mom and Tori open our gifts that night. We got Tori the most random assortment of things: a half eaten PB&J sandwich, matches, tin pan, gas line water remover, and cockroach repellant. She was not happy until I explained it was for a chemistry experiment (then she freaked out).

My sister is a total pyro, so I knew shes love this.
I just hope she doesn't kill anyone with it...

Christmas Day we went to church and opened gifts. Then we played ESPN Monopoly (I have been banned since Christmas 2 years ago, so I was on my best and least manipulative behavior). By the time we finished our first game Kyle called us on Skype! We also got to Skype with the Holm's in St. Cloud and marveled at how bug the Crookston's kids are already!!!


The day after Christmas we all packed in the car and drove up to Twin Falls Idaho to visit Aunt Paula and her family. Joey, Crystal, Chelsie, Audrey and their families were all there too. These are my double cousins, aka our moms are sisters and our dads are brothers so we share all 4 grandparents. Now you should know that this family is has a nasty sickness... they are die hard Packer fans.

Aunt Paula said we could come visit with one condition: no purple allowed. So naturally we all work Vikings jerseys. Tori wore #4 Favre, Mom wore #42 Sharper, I wore #28 AP, and Dillon wore #54 customized Holm. As we walked up the driveway we could hear people screaming lock the door!

Aunt Paula changed into green and reluctantly
agreed to take a picture with us.

If there's one thing you should never do it's leave yourself logged on to facebook when Tori is around. Aunt Paula got a kindle for Christmas and made this mistake. Tori did all the typing and I may or may not have told her what to write, but we changed Paula's status. We were on our way to the falls so we hoped she wouldn't notice right away, but it was barely 2 minutes before she was screaming, "AMY! Give me back my kindle!" I of course claimed innocence. We had changed it to, "After years of living a lie I have to confess, I bleed purple! Go Vikes! Packers Stink!"

Aunt Paula was desperate to delete the status before any of
her friends saw it. Her panic made it even funnier!

We went to the falls, which we not what I was expecting. I guess I was thinking something like Bridal Veil Falls, and we got more of Niagara Falls. Really beautiful and awesome.




After we mostly hung out and played games. Dillon and I got our first taste of Settlers of Catan. We also played the dice game. It's a simple concept: everyone gets a paper and the goal is to write the numbers 1 to 100, but there's only 1 pen and you can only write when you roll doubles. It sounds dumb. In fact it took some convincing to get people to play. Within 2 minutes Brian was screaming "Why is this so fun!?".

Wilsons tend to be a tad competitive... it was really fun.

Skyping with Elder Wilson!

Christmas afternoon we were so blessed to get to Skype with my brother on his mission. He is serving in Loganholme Australia near Brisbane, and has been since April of 2010. For those of you who don't know much about missions we get to send letters to Kyle and email him when ever we want, but he only writes back one day a week. Also he only calls home twice a year: on Mother's Day and on Christmas. Lately we have gotten to skype with him on those days.




The months since the last call have been busy and we were so excited to get to talk with him to catch up. I got to show him my baby bump (his first nephew). He is loving his mission SO much! His current companion (Elder Hopoate) just barely got into the mission field, so Kyle is his first companion. He is a professional rugby player in Australia. He turned down a $1.5 Million contract to serve a mission. They get along so so so well. It was cute to see Elder Hopoate talk about how much he loves Kyle, and how much Kyle loves him. They have had a lot of success so far.

Here's his Mormon message, it's an awesome one I highly
recommend following this link to watch his video.
http://mormon.org/me/6TDH/#

It was so great to talk to my brother. He looks so good, and is loving his mission so much. 2 years away from work, school, family, and friends is a huge sacrifice. But he wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm afraid we're going to have to drag him home kicking and screaming in 4 months.