It's the end of the year as we know it.... Welcome to December!! Sit down and hold on cause we've got a LOT to cover for this month.
Bat Saga update:
As of December 1st, we were moved out of the bat house and in our new house, and working like mad to unpack and put everything away, because I had a goal of being 100% unpacked before Christmas (we almost reached that goal. We hung the last of the pictures on December 31st). We did have an issue with the new house. The previous renters had a dog. The first time we came to look at the house, it didn't smell like there was an animal at all. When we came back a week later to take some measurements it didn't smell like dog then, but as we were walking through some rooms, I saw piles of dog poop on the floors. We let the Landlord know what we had found. They said they would clean the carpets. The day we moved in, the house smelled of dog pee. In the end, the Landlord had to tear out some carpeting, and the sub-flooring. It was pretty frustrating to leave a house that stank only to move into another house that stank. Thankfully after the carpeting was replaced, the house smelled better. Before we left the bat house I took some last photos of the ugly new fireplace so that I could compare it to what was originally there. I tried to get it from the same angle.
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| Before |
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| After |
I know that depression gray is all the rage now, but I think it's just ugly. Maybe it might look better with some updated flooring.... No, on second thought, depression gray is just plain ugly there's no amount of new flooring that can fix that. The new fireplace just dominates the room and makes the corners on either side of that monstrosity nothing but wasted space, and I greatly dislike wasted space. Before, there was room to put a china cabinet or bookshelves, after there wasn't. I suppose you could fit some skinny bookshelves in there, but had we stayed, there was no way my china cabinets would fit anymore, and there wouldn't have been room for me to put them anywhere else. I would have had to move them downstairs.
I'm a curious creature and so I have been keeping tabs on the bat house, because I wanted to know if the owners would wash their hands of it and sell it, or if they were going to try and rent it again. On December 6th, the house went up for rent. As of today, it is still up for rent. It's been up for rent for 41 days now, and shows that 11 people have contacted them about it. My guess is that when people come to tour the house, they take one whiff of the house and walk away. They haven't updated the pictures in the listing. In the listing, they say, "Kindly note that the property is rented as is." I find that odd, and slightly ominous. I am probably going to keep checking on it every so often to see how long it takes before it gets rented or they decide to sell it. I would imagine if they can't rent it soon that they might consider selling it. That'll be fun because they will have to disclose the bat problem.
I was quite upset that I was not able to decorate for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and with us moving right at the start of December, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get Christmas put up, but I have some awesome kiddos that pushed really hard to help me get unpacked so that on December 6th....
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| We decorated for Christmas |
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| This wasn't all of my decorations |
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| But we put up the ones that we had access to. And dang, I have a lot of lights on my tree. I LIKE it!! |
When you are unpacking a house, you need a good box cutter....
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| I found this on Amazon, and HAD to have it. It's a really nifty box opener. |
Nathan and I had an adventure. His company, which has offices in Houston, Texas, had a company Christmas party, and they said they would fly spouses out. So, I got a trip to Houston!! Sit back and hold on, because this was a wild and crazy adventure.
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:35 am on Wednesday, December 10th, which meant that we had to be to the airport early in order to give us enough time to get through security. Which meant that we had to be on the road by 5:30 am, which wasn't a problem since my body likes to wake me up at 4 am. We had pre-arranged for me to have wheelchair service, and it took us a little bit to find where to go to get the wheelchair. Now, because of my spinal cord stimulator, I have a medical identification card that I have to take to the airport with me. While I was being wheeled over to the security line, I got to reading the back of the card which says, "Attention airport security. This person has an implanted spinal cord stimulation device. Strong electromagnetic fields can potentially turn the stimulator off, or cause uncomfortable or jolting stimulation. It is recommended the patient be assisted in bypassing the security screening device and be given a private screening without the use of a security wand." I wasn't really in the mood for a possible uncomfortable jolting, and so I notified the attendant that was pushing me that I could not go through their machines. As for the private screening, that meant I had to have a FULL body pat down. They THOROUGHLY checked everywhere, and it was rather awkward. It took forever for us to get through security because we had to wait for someone to come over and do the pat down.
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| Sitting in the airport, waiting for the pilot to show up. |
Once we got past security and I got my dignity back, we were able to make it to our gate with about 20 minutes before boarding. Because of my disability, it means that I get to board the plane first, before anyone else, which is a nice little perk. So, there we were, all fresh and ready to board the plane..... but they didn't board us. The boarding time came and went, and we were quickly approaching our departure time, and they weren't having anyone board the plane. Then they gave an announcement that as soon as the Captain gave the word, we would start the boarding process. And we waited, and waited. Twenty minutes past our scheduled departure time came and went, and we were now starting to wonder what in the world was going on. Then we got a text message update that our flight was delayed and the new departure time was 8:05 am. They then told us over the intercom that they were waiting for the Captain. Then we got another text message update saying that our flight was delayed again, and the new departure time was 8:15 am, and again we were told over the intercom that the Captain was on his way to the airport. Now I'm wondering what in the world is going on. I was getting quite irritated with this Captain, and trying not to be because I don't know the full story. So many questions were running around my head, like: Did he sleep through his alarm? Is there a lot of traffic on the road? Was there an accident? I hope he's not hung over. Then we got the text message update that our flight was now set to depart at 8:30 am, then delayed to 8:40 am. Nathan and I were both quite frustrated because this was really messing up our plans for the day. It was pushing 9:00 am before our plane took off. Once we were all on the plane, and pushing back from the gate, the Captain came over the intercom and apologized for being late because he only found out he was supposed to be flying about an hour previously, because the schedule he was given said it was his day off.
At least we were finally on our way to Texas. The flight was great and I had a window seat.
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| The Command Center was a lot of fun to see. Got to watch the re-creation of the Apollo 11 launch, and landing on the moon. |
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| Texas Longhorns |
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| We were able to go up into the Space Shuttle and then we got to tour through the 747. I don't do selfies very well. |
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| The inside of the shuttle had mirrors on the ceiling. |
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| Even though we had to quickly move through everything, I still had a good time and enjoyed seeing the things we did see. |
Our Uber driver picked us up at 5:00 and we had a very long drive to the hotel room. I think it took us about an hour and a half. We had dinner at the hotel. It was a very fancy and high end hotel. The food was pretty good. I got a Hawaiian pizza. Our hotel room was the fanciest thing I've ever stayed in. There were some downsides to it because it only had a shower. I've never seen a hotel that didn't have a bathtub. The bathroom faucet had a weird leak that sprayed water all over the counter. And the bed, like all hotel beds, was very uncomfortable. But it had a mini kitchen, a huge Living Room, and a separate bedroom. Oh, the door to the bedroom, and the door to the bathroom smacked into each other all the time. Aesthetically pleasing, but very poorly designed. We wanted to stay on Utah time, which meant we had some time to kill before going to bed, and since we had just toured the Houston Space center, we decided to watch Apollo 11.
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| Who designed this?!?!? |
Thursday went fairly well. Nathan had to go to the office for the day and luckily the office was only two buildings away and he could walk. I caught up on my scripture reading because I wasn't able to do it on Wednesday. At home, I have been working on alphabetizing all of the names, titles, and descriptions of Jesus Christ I found in my reading of the scriptures. With all the moving, I haven't had a chance to work on it a whole lot, so I brought it with me to work on, and that is what I spent the day doing. We rode with some of Nathan's coworkers to the company Christmas party. The party was in downtown Houston, and traffic was terrible getting there, and parking even worse. The party was in a fancy, high end bar. Nathan and I were the only ones not drinking. You can tell just how little sodas get ordered in a place like that because my Sprite was warm. We chatted with some of Nathan's coworkers, but mostly we just sat there watching people get drunk. It's a good thing I like people watching. There was no way we were going to ride home with anyone who was drinking, even if they only had one drink, plus we also didn't want to stay for the whole thing. Luckily were able to use the excuse of an early flight in the morning so we could leave the party early. The first hour of the party was for what they call, "happy hour". Happy hour is where you do nothing but drink and socialize. It was a zoo in there. For starters, they had the music up so loud that you couldn't hear what anyone was saying, which meant that people had to practically shout to hear each other. The second hour is when the brought out the hors d'oeuvres. Some of them were okay, but most of them were gross. The mushrooms made me gag. The second hour was dinner. The only thing that was edible about the dinner was the short ribs. They cut the carrots for the salad in these long spaghetti like strings, but they were so long that it made it almost impossible to eat. I had to twist, and twist, and twist, and twist it around my fork just to be able to eat it. If that is what fancy, high end food tastes like, no thank you. I think the last hour was for dessert and mingling, but we didn't want to stay for that, so we left right after we finished eating. The drive back to the hotel wasn't too bad. We did have some interesting Uber drivers though. The guy who drove us down to the Space Center was from Cuba, and I could barely understand what he was saying (he was very chatty) thankfully Nathan could understand him. The lady who drove us from the Space Center to our hotel was from Louisiana. She was also very chatty, but she had that lovely, buttery Louisiana accent, so I didn't mind. The guy who drove us from the party back to our hotel was a huge basketball fan, and was also very chatty. He and Nathan spent the entire drive chatting about basketball. I'm a football girl, so I just looked out the window. Oddly enough, the guy who drove us to the airport the following morning was NOT chatty. Once we got back to our hotel, I worked on packing up as much as I could to make it easier in the morning. Then we watched the Martian before bed. |
| They had someone going around the party taking holiday pictures of everyone. That is my Sprite on the table, and next to it is a glass of ice. I don't like ice in my beverages. Ice only belongs in water. When they took my drink order, I told them what I tell everyone, Sprite, no ice. So what did he do, he brought me a warm Sprite and a glass of ice. I drank the warm Sprite and ignored the glass of ice. Ice just waters down your drink, and I can't stand a watered down drink. |
Friday, oh Friday. I had a doctor appointment scheduled for 2:30 pm to get a Cortisone shot in my right knee. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:40 am. and arriving in Salt Lake around 10 am (taking into account the time difference between Utah and Texas). That should have been plenty of time to come home, get unpacked and settled in and maybe do some house unpacking before I would have to go to my appointment. We got to the airport on time, and I had to get frisked again. We got to our gate with plenty of time to get some breakfast and eat it before it was time to board the plane. I was happy to see that the Captain was there and ready to go. Everything was going great and I figured that this would be a smooth flight, unlike the fiasco on Wednesday. I mean what are the odds of having another fiasco??? I didn't yet know how wrong I was.
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| I was happily waiting to board our plane, and rather excited to take off in fog. |
They started the boarding process on time, I had a window seat, and Nathan and I got to be the first people to board the plane. I was all settled in, and excited for the plane ride home. They got everyone else on the plane, closed the doors, started their safety video, and we started to push back from the gate. The Captain came on over the intercom and said that we were leaving about 15 minutes early, so that was nice. Once the plane has pushed back from the gate, it stops for a few minutes to do engine checks before proceeding to the runway. While they were doing the engine check, a horrible screeching noise filled the cabin, and I immediately knew that we would not be taking off, and told Nathan as much. Sure enough, the Captain came on over the intercom and said that there was something wrong with one of the engines, but they should have it fixed shortly. We were asked to sit tight, and we would be on our way in a few minutes. I turned to Nathan and said, "I bet we have to pull back into the gate." Sure enough, the Captain came on the intercom again and said we would have to pull back to the gate, but asked us to remain in our seats and they would have the problem fixed shortly. Well, when we pulled back into the gate, they moved the walk-way up to the plane. I then told Nathan, "I bet they ask us to get off the plane." Sure enough, a few minutes later the Captain came over the intercom stating that a hydraulic pump in one of the engines had failed and it would need to be repaired and that we would all have to exit the plane, but that they would have it fixed as quickly as they could so they could get us on our way. As soon as people got off the plane, a lot of them lined up to talk to the gate agent about getting on a different flight. Nathan and I looked into the options, but the next flight didn't leave until 11:30, and would put us into Salt Lake around 2 pm. That wouldn't leave us enough time to get off the plane, get through the airport, get on the shuttle bus to our car, and get to my doctor appointment on time. So, we decided to wait and see if they could get the plane fixed. We figured that if they could get it fixed by 10:30, that we could possibly make it to my appointment. So, we waited. Then we got the text notification that our flight was delayed until 8:02 am, then delayed to 8:22 am, then delayed to 9:15 am. The captain came back out at one point and made the announcement that they had fixed the engine, and started it up, but that it promptly broke and that they needed a new part. The problem was that they didn't have the part they needed there and would have to have it flown in from a different airport. At that point, we realized it was a hopeless cause and there was no way I would be able to make it to my doctor appointment. So, I had to call the doctor and reschedule my appointment. Upset doesn't even begin to cover what I was feeling in that moment. My knee started hurting two weeks before our trip, and got worse because a week before our trip I tripped and fell on it while I was doing my shift at the temple. I was hanging on for dear life for this doctor appointment. The doctor I see, is partially retired and is only in the office on Friday's. Friday's are when I work in the temple, which makes scheduling with this doctor very difficult. I scheduled the appointment the moment my knee first started hurting, and after falling on the silly thing, I was really looking forward to the appointment. I am a HUGE fan of Cortisone shots, they are amazing. So, when I had to reschedule the appointment, I cried!! I was so upset that I literally cried. It now meant that I would have to wait another week to get pain relief.
At that point, there were 4 options open to us:
1. Wait for the flight to get fixed, not knowing how long it would take, and hope they fixed it in time for me to make it to my appointment.
2. Try and get on the 11:30 am flight and pray that we could get out of the airport quickly and that the doctors office would give me mercy for being a little bit late.
3. Get on the 11:12 am flight that had a layover in Minneapolis, or
4. wait for the 7:15 pm flight.
We didn't know exactly what to do. We bet hope against hope and took the gamble to take option 1. We lost as we then got another text notification stating that our flight was now delayed until 12:30. We quickly tried to get on the 11:30 flight, but were too late. We didn't want to wait for the 7:15 flight, so our only option was to take the 11:12 flight with the layover in Minneapolis. It meant that we wouldn't get home until almost 4:30 pm though. I love flying, and so ordinarily I would have been very excited to have a long day of flying, but I was so upset at having to miss my doctor appointment, that I was a bit grumpy about the whole situation. By the time we made that decision, it was getting close to time for boarding, and we barely had time to get some food and use the restroom. Then to add insult to injury, the flight was so full that I wasn't able to get a window seat, and Nathan and I weren't able to sit next to each other, which only made my mood worse. I always get the window seat because I like to look out the window the entire time. I found it very difficult to keep the tears at bay by this point. Meanwhile, I kept getting text message alerts for our original flight saying that it was delayed until 5:00 pm, and the last update I got was that it was delayed until 6:30 pm. I haven't got a clue how long it took for them to fix the plane after that. Since I got stuck with a middle seat, I figured that I would politely ask whoever had the window seat if they would be willing to change seats. The guy who had the window seat was the size of a linebacker. When I asked him if he would trade me seats, he declined stating that he got motion sickness and needed to be by a window. He blocked the window so that I couldn't see out of it at all, but I did have one ray of hope because I could partially see out of the window in the row in front of us. I then had another linebacker size guy sit down next to me on my other side. It's a good thing I'm a small person because I was uncomfortably sandwiched between them and didn't have much room to move. The guy in the window seat played on his phone the whole time. Not long after takeoff, the lady in the row in front of us shut the blinds on her window. Then, not long after that, the window guy closed the shades to our window!!! What the heck?!?! He said he needed the window seat because he gets motion sick, but then closes the window?!?!? I was way beyond upset at this point. I was still extremely upset about having to cancel my doctor appointment, and was painfully reminded of it every time I moved my knee, but now I couldn't even look out the window!! I'm going to be brutally honest and vulnerable right now, because I could not hold back the tears any longer at this point.
The flight from Houston to Minneapolis was about 3 hours long. My only consolation was that we got some cool turbulence on that flight. The guy did open his window for the final descent, but I couldn't see anything. The lady in the row in front of me opened up her window too, but only by a crack. As we were getting ready to deplane, Nathan told me that our next flight was already boarding, and he said it loud enough for people to hear, but no one moved out of our way so we could get off the plane. Thankfully there was someone waiting at the gate with a wheelchair for me, otherwise we wouldn't have made it to our next flight. The nice thing about that flight is that it wasn't a full flight so I was able to get a window seat and Nathan was able to sit next to me, and we got the whole row to ourselves. The flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake was another 3 hours. Also, it was VERY cold in Minneapolis, and they have a ton of snow!! As we were taxiing to the runway, I noticed several police cars and ambulances surrounding another plane. I don't know what was going on, and I'll never know, but I was very curious to know. We had to go through de-icing before take off, which is always fun to watch. It was a long flight home, we got some fairly decent turbulence though, although it wasn't as good as the flight from Houston. I know!! I'm crazy because I enjoy turbulence. My mood did improve some because I got to look out the window for the whole flight. I was VERY happy when we finally landed in Salt Lake. Delta did give us some meal vouchers for our troubles, so we stopped and got some food before leaving the airport. One cool thing happened though, as we were leaving the terminal, I saw a guy walk past that I recognized as a BYU football player. He was long gone before I figured out who he was. It was Connor Pay. I only wish I would have recognized him sooner so I could have yelled out his name, and then when he looked at me, I could have yelled, "Go Cougs!!" (I know I am a nerd). But oh well, I at least got to see him, and that will have to be good enough. By the time we got our food, took the shuttle to the car, and dealt with rush hour traffic, it was pushing 6 pm before we got home. It had been a very long, exhausting, frustrating, and emotional day. All we wanted to do was to crash and burn.....but unfortunately our day, or at least Nathan's day was not over yet....
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| Bye bye to Minneapolis |
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| Yay for window seats. I wasn't even mad that I was over the wing. |
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| I was just happy to have a window seat and not sandwiched in between two huge dudes. |
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There's a little white dot off in the distance, that was another plane going past in the opposite direction.
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| We flew in over Logan |
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| I made sure to say hi to Richard and Oliva as we flew over. |
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| Jordan River temple. I made sure to say hi to my parents as we flew over them. |
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| Taylorsville temple. I made sure to say hi to Becky as we flew over her. |
Eliza was scheduled to arrive
later in the evening. She had called Nathan not long after we landed to tell
him that her battery light was coming on. Well, her car died in Ogden, and
Nathan had to go rescue her. They didn't get home until well after 9 pm. It was a very long and exhausting day. (I also made sure to say hi to Eliza as we flew over her while she was making the long drive home from Nebraska because I'm nice like that). LOL.
We were finally able to celebrate Eilee and Jenni's birthday. Eilee turned 20!! These kids are getting way too old, way too quickly.
Eliza and Jimmy trying to dead lift each other (at least I think that is what it is called).
Aunt Jenni taught them some Kung Fu stances
After the fiasco with the Invisalign, I went and had some allergy testing done....
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| I will spare you the pictures of my back, but this is the list of things they tested me for. Turns out I am allergic to plastics, and we discovered something else. I have Mugwort Spice Syndrome. It sounds like something straight out of Harry Potter, almost like I offended a wizard at some point and he put a curse on me. Basically I am allergic to spice and pretty much anything in the Nightshade family. This explains so much!! Ya'll PEPPER is too spicy for me. All these years I thought I just had a weak mouth, turns out it was allergies. |
We had our annual Christmas Nativity.
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| Frumpy angel, |
We did our Christmas on the evening of the 23rd.
After opening presents, we all went downstairs to get some pictures of all of us because it's been TWO YEARS since we've had everyone together.
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| Getting set up for the picture |
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| Take a few nice ones |
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| Then we go silly |
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| This one cracks me up because we are all making faces but Nathan is just standing there smiling. |
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| And finally he makes a face. |
Random shots after the photos were done
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| Cat toys everywhere. |
We played a few rounds of Telestrations.......
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| Close enough. |
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| It did not take long for it to derail |
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| I can see how it went there |
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| It was all going well until.... |
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| ???????? (They are NOT expecting, so don't get excited or anything. This wasn't some kind of strange announcement, besides, I believe it was Eilee who wrote that). |
We saw this lovely tree while we were out driving around looking at Christmas lights.
Christmas at my parents.
Celebrating Jaina's and grandma's birthday
And last, but not least, kitten photo dump.....
Prepare for cuteness.
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| He's a shoulder kitten |
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| She wants outside so badly |
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| Helping Jimmy do some push-ups |
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| Trapped!! |
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| Cocoa is starting to tolerate him. |
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| His favorite place to sleep |
Congratulations if you made it to the end, that was a lot to get through. I hope you have enjoyed the 2025 edition of the Davis Family Year in Review. I sure had fun doing these blog posts. But we've reached the end. Stay tuned for 2026, and I'll see y'all next year!
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