Zavoral Villa!

This is a common conversation we had with people before we embarked on our trip: Wait, you're going to Puerto Rico for how long? Five weeks. Wow, that is crazy!  Yep, I know. I am ready to do something bold and crazy with my kids. So like, what about work for you and Jeremy? I'm teaching as a substitute this year, so I can take off as much time as I want. For my piano studio and family music classes, I only scheduled fall and spring lessons to give time off for the trip. Jeremy will take vacation days to come down with us the first week and then come back to get us the last week. Our earnings this year from AirBnB are paying for everything. The boys will miss a lot of school, won't they? Is that allowed? Won't the district/state fine you or something?  The boys will miss about 4 or 5 weeks of school. Between sickness and snow days last year, they each missed about 2 weeks of school anyway. It's obviously not advised to be gone that long, but that isn't going to...

We had a very calm and peaceful Christmas eve, Christmas day, and the entire week following. Our Chirstmas Eve dinner was just the four of us and we were able to carry out pretty much every tradition we have established over the years living here in Minnesota. We did our traditional stake dinner, and this time we had sweet potatoes with brocolli. I loved our cranberry wassail from our wassail party so much that I made another batch special for this dinner.  Then we acted out the nativity. Dallin was a wise man, I was Mary, Tanner was a shepherd boy and Jeremy was Joseph. Can you see the angel off to the side? That's what we used for all the angels. We had so much fun dressing up and reading from the scriptures to bring Christ's birth to life in our home. It was fun to see that the boys know details about the story that I didn't learn until I was a teenager and in college. They are remembering what we teach them each year and becoming quite the scriptorians! Before bed, the ...