Iowa

It's been a while since I've had an update but there wasn't much to talk about between my last post and going home for Christmas. Going home was kind of a spur of the moment thing, as we originally had planned not to have me come home. But, after talking to my parents one day, we decided that we should try to get me home if we could find a cheap enough plane ticket. Obviously, since we hadn't planned on it, the plane tickets were quite expensive at the time. We looked and found a ticket for very cheap after a couple hours of searching! The plane was leaving in 12 hours from London and had open seats still, so maybe that contributed to the sudden drop in price (it dropped by about $700 compared to others!). Anyways, I got home and had a great time with my family and I am very, very glad I got to go home.

The only thing of note between my last post and Christmas was actually quite important. My good friend, Kingsley Henry, was baptized on Saturday, November 28! Here we are with Elder Lee and Elder Roberts:


The beautiful Iowa weather was there for me when I got home:


And another shot of the house with the kids on a snowhill in the background:


Andrew and the snow that went as high as the deck:


Sara getting ready to jump off the deck into the snow with Sage in the background:


Sage, Sara, and Andrew starting on our amazing tunnel under the snow:


And finally Christmas Day. Here Matt's trying to tan while talking to Mom, with Tamara, Sicily, Ronald, and Andrew in the background:


Sicily taking pictures with someone's camera with Dad and Tamara and the Christmas Tree in the background (and Andrew's knee in the bottom left):


I didn't have any pictures of Mark and Tiffany and their family unfortunately, and this is the only one where you can really see Sawyer. He always seems to be ducking behind something in the others and then I have about five that he took of himself so you either see just his forehead or just his mouth:


Also important: Iowa beat Georgia Tech in their BCS game and BYU stomped Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

The return trip to England didn't go so smoothly and involved spending a night in the Heathrow airport and then finally dragging my suitcase over a mile through the snow to my place, but I made it.

And now just because I like this picture, the view from the driveway: