Our Crazy Christmas!

Christmas is always busy around the Merkley household, Justin is just getting use to the idea that Christmas is celebrated for a whole week in Vernal, but I have to say I think this year may have topped them all. The "normal" Christmas festivities alone are plenty but this year we thought we would just throw in a Graduation surprise party (for Jesse) a Mission farewell (for Nate) Family Pictures, an Amazing Family Race, and Swimming, Sledding, and Movies (for the kids) needless to say we had a "CRAZY" Christmas this year!

just singing a few Christmas carols (this was a new tradition my aunt started this year, not sure if it will make it in next years schedule but A for effort Aunt Lisa)...

The boy cousins...

The girl cousins...

Barsie and I getting our craft on...
My Dad making the worlds BEST fudge (I know everyone thinks that about their recipes, but really my Dads is the best :) sorry!) He gets serious about the whipping process if you can't tell, in fact I would not be surprised if occasionally one of the secret ingredients may be a drop of sweat...
Christmas morning....
(this makes me laugh, it always feels crowded at my moms house but this picture makes me realize just how crowded it really is)

The Amazing Race...

Our new favorite tradition, thank you Alisha for all the work you do to make this so fun!!! I had no pictures of this night so I had to steal these from my cousin Melissa, and because I could not have narrated this any better (I just stole her whole post, and am hoping it's okay with her)... so in her words.......

See we Merkley's can be quite competitive and so rather than getting our competitive aggression out during a game of Family Feud or Uno we had an Amazing Race the day after Christmas.

These are the 9 teams that competed and raced all around Vernal, Utah with it being, like, 2 degrees outside. Literally 2 degrees.

Don't we all just look like the nicest people alive? You wouldn't guess that the arguing began even before we could all get out the door!

Jodi and Jesse were the Grey/Blue team and were the winners of the game.

Makall, my Dad (Melissa's), and Aunt Lisa were the Black Team. At one point they were calling me asking where I was headed, and I thought they were trying to cheat so I faked faulty cell coverage and hung up on them. Turns out they were just trying to help. What a nice daddy I have.

Autumn and Alex were the White Team (here predicting that they will come in second, which I think they did. Second or Third). From what I hear Autumn is a little scavenger who stole mine and Michael's house of cards after we WHOOPED everyone at that challenge.

Justin and Ashley were the Green Team and although we were SUPPOSED to follow all traffic laws, Justin was a little speed demon. I should know....I was right on his tail. Hehehe

Nate and Barsie were the Orange Team. Since Nate was SOOOO intimidated by us, he had to try to slow us down by trying to block our car in at every challenge, BUT YOU CAN'T TRAP ME NATE!

Aunt Julie and Uncle "not the first born" Terel were the Red Team. One of our clues sent us to Grandma and Grandpa's "first born's" house. I headed off to my dad's, even though the clue meant for us to go to Uncle Terel's. That is where Michael and I lost the game! But I can see how everyone thought Uncle Terel is the older child, he is much more mature acting than my dad!
Sid and Michelle were the Yellow Team. They call this their game face, I called it their "mad they know they are gonna lose face"
Meg and Jeff the only team who actually knew what color "red" brick houses were!

Michael and I were Team Purple. And we came in dead last! But you know what they say... save the best for last.
and a HUGE shout out and thank you to Alisha for planning this whole thing and to her hubby Dave for helping her out. They did so much work and planning for this and it was seriously awesome.

What FUN night!