It was a weekend of lots of random fun and playing and silliness. There was just as much Christmas celebration, worship, community.

I wake up Saturday morning to the kids giggling and giving me some art they had done.

Lucas, drew this crazy kitty with a Santa hat, and even he knew how nuts it looks.

Mirah’s drawings are getting more and more classic.

All of my Christmas cards are printed, the holiday news letter is written:

 

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE: 2020 AK Hite Christmas Letter

We had all kinds of great travel plans in 2020. Allison went to visit our new nephew Simon in February, then, uh, you know.. We, uh.. stopped leaving the house. We tried all kinds of fun stuff to distract ourselves:

We set up an above-ground pool and trampoline. Lucas taught Mirah how to do flips. We swam in the pool every day until cold weather ruined things. Karl threatened to baptise Mirah in the pool, but she got a small church building baptism instead.

Luna is that cute looking mini goldendoodle who joined the family this year. She barfed on our couch the other day and chewed up the foam while Karl was washing the cushion covers. So that was fun. 

When she’s not locked in combat with Lucas, Luna has loved to do 2020 things with us: working from home, hiking around Utah Valley, riding bikes (Mirah has no training wheels!), chasing RC planes/boats/cars, paddling kayak, longing for walks on the beach.

The kids went to in-person school this Fall. That went swimmingly until November when definitely Mirah and probably all of us got the virus™. We’re mostly all better now.

Saved up all that adventure budget–we’re moving in a month or two! Don’t get overly excited, our new house is only a couple of blocks away.

2020 sucks, but only mostly. 

Love,

Allison, Karl, Mirah, Lucas & Luna Pipkin Hite

akhite.com

 

I spent a big part of the day labeling and stamping cards to friends and loved ones. I started the process of texting, ,messaging and calling loved ones to make sure addresses are correct.

Other Christmas cards had started to arrive!

Like this adorable one from the Young Family.

We made an official Pipkin Family Christmas Gift Giving Chart:

We went out to Manilla pond thinking we could drive my boat, BUT the lake had frozen over, and with that, winter’s icy cold grip had closed, and all efforts for Fall Fun were over. Well, they should have been over. BUT Karl thought it would be cool to drive his RC on the frozen pond. And it was, until the car skidded into an inviable hole, and ended up in the bottom of the pond.

Our drive home was a quiet one. So we listened to a classic Christmas album to fill the quiet.

 

A couple hours later, it was time for our ward Christmas party. It was a little different this year. We did a drive though the church parking lot.

Where we picked up a fun gift from the Primary! A fun placemat, a snickerdoodle, and a cool multi color clicker pen.

They handed up a thing of Costco potato soup and a loaf of French bread.

We had a Cesar Salad bag in the fridge that we used to round out the meal, and snap, Christmas party feast accomplished.

 

After dinner we snuggled into bed, and turned on the live broadcast of our ward’s Christmas devotional.

Sunday morning we attended our remote church and Magical Musical Minute was extra Christmasy.

That night was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Always wonderful. Always beautiful.

It was Sunday night, so after the devotional we had our traditional Hot Coco…

But this time we did our first ever Hot Chocolate BOMB, from Trader Joes.

AND Later that night, I had an awesome test message chat with my siblings with pets.

 

 

We’re going to do a fun pet gift exchange. Luna got BEMO. BEMO got Ruby. Ruby got Theo. Theo got Luna.

Christmas season has POPPED OFF!