Last post of Christmas break (promise!)

It is February and I am now finally posting our last set of photos over Christmas. Yikes! Anyways, over  the break we stayed with Brett's grandma and had a lot of fun. We shopped, saw Les Miserables and ate out way too much. Here are pictures of some of our adventures. 

We went to Scheels which is a giant sporting store with an indoor Ferris wheel, giant fish tanks, virtual golfing, restaurants, and pretty much everything you can think of. It was super crowded when we went, but it was fun to look around and see what they had.

One afternoon Grandma and Ken took us to their neighbor who is very into decorating for the holidays. We went and got a tour of her home and learned a lot of history about Christmas. I had a TON of photos from this  little tour,  so I put these photos together to not overwhelm people with a super long post.

Each tree had a theme and was elaborately decorated. The white tree above was a temple tree and had an ornament for every single temple in the world. It was quite impressive! The gingerbread houses are made every year by her and her family. They do replicas of homes, or of temples. She then stores them and brings them out and has them all lined up around the house for Christmas and she usually puts them by the gingerbread tree (above top left) They were amazing.

The top left tree was the Twelve Days of Christmas tree. It had twelve paintings from Liz Lemon Swindle on it and then she gave us a print out of the true meaning behind the twelve days. She told us that the song was a secret code for those persecuted for the faith but according to snopes.com that isn't true...so who knows? We also saw her tea time tree in her bed room, complete with a giant teapot on top.  Then the bottom two pictures are of her laundry room which is full of dolls and of course a giant doll house that her husband made her. It was crazy!

I can't remember much about these trees, there were seriously a ton all over!

The temple replica was their wedding cake topper. It was huge! I do know the bottom right tree was a Bethlehem tree and the ornaments they got when they visited Bethlehem a few years ago. 

Their office had a patriotic tree along with a replica of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

It was fun to stay with grandma and Ken and spend time with them. We are so lucky to have a place where we can stay to visit family and friends, and a place where we definitely get spoiled!