Merry Christmas! It has been a very merry Christmas for us with days filled with fun activities, good conversations, and relaxing sits by the Christmas tree.

For the first time in a while the whole Hazard family was together. This is getting harder to do as we multiply and spread apart across the country. I don't think I have really talked about my family on this blog. Go ahead and skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't care. We, of course, are in Ohio. I am in dental school and Rachel mostly stays home with our three beautiful children, Eva, Jack, and Addy. She also works part time as an ASL interpreter in the community. My brother, Griffin, and his wife, Ashland, live in Oklahoma. He is attending law school and she is in a nursing program. They are expecting a baby sometime next Summer. My sister, Haley, lives in Texas. Her husband, Matt, is an officer on an army base. She stays home with their adorable son, Bennett. Allison, my other sister, lives in Rexburg and stays busy by being involved in activities on the BYU-I campus. She also attends school and works as an assistant to an orthodontist. And finally my other sister, Courtney, was living in Provo attending BYU. She is preparing to apply to a nursing program. My parents are in Rexburg where my mom works as a Kindergarten teacher and my Dad heads up the Department of Academic Learning at BYU-Idaho. I am very proud to call each of them a part of my family.

Anyway, about our week. I can't remember the exact order of events, but we did a lot. We went bowling. We went to watch the movie "A Christmas Carol." We went and played laser tag. We went and played miniature golf. We went to a big inflatable playground with Eva. We went rock climbing. We played racquetball. We took family pictures. Some of us went to a late night showing of "Blind Side," and some of us went out in the garage and worked on cars. Some of us went horseback riding.

And of course we spent a lot of time just sitting, eating, talking, and playing games. And holding babies. Lots of babies. We have been spoiled with all the help, and are sort of dreading our return to Cleveland. Christmas morning we all opened presents and had our traditional Christmas brunch. All things considered, it has been a fantastic week.

Today we are blessing our babies. Rachel's family drove up last night so they could be here as well. Also, my grandma and grandpa just arrived from Colorado. For now, I'll just post our family pictures. More will follow in the next few days.

Christmas time is here! I have finnished off my finals and now it is time to totally forget about school for a while and enjoy the Christmas season with family.

On Wednesday we got up early and went to the airport. We were a little bit freaked out by the prospect of getting through airport security and boarding/debording the plane with three kids. As it turned out, things went better than we could have hoped for. Yes, we held up the line a little bit, and yes, a few people gave us dirty looks. But that's okay because we expected it. Mostly, however, people were very nice and helpful and sympathetic. And I'm sure they were all sending up silent prayers that they weren't on the same flight as us. As far as the flights themselves, the babies slept almost the whole time. Eva actually understands the concept of an airplane now and she loved taking off and watching the ground fall away. Landing was hard for Addie. I think the pressure change hurt her little ears. Or maybe she just wanted to add her own voice to the chorus of screaming babies that dominated our plane. Either way, I have to say that our children are pretty good travelers.

We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Sandy with Rachel's family. In that time we did a lot of talking and game playing. We attempted a trip to the mall, but Jackson had other plans so that didn't really work out. We went to Chuck-e-Cheese with Evelyn and she had a good time playing the games. At the end, we even had enough tickets to get a few cheap toys. Rachel made sure of this by blatantly cheating on some of the games (the fences around the bucket toss are no obstacle to my sweet wife). Friday night we went to the Desert Star Theatre. We love this place! It is a dinner theatre that Rachel and I used to frequent when we were living in Provo, and it is almost a gaurantee that you will relax and have a good time and laugh out loud.

On Saturday we drove up to Rexburg to be with my family. It is a lot of fun having everyone together. There is always something going on and the the babies have all the attention they can handle. We will be here for the rest of this week and have some fun days planned out.

We want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. This is a great time of year when we can relax, take a step back, and remember what the important things are- family, good relationships, and the birth of our savior are all great blessings in our lives.

I've got to apologize here because I havn't taken any pictures at all this week. Other people have, but I havn't gotten them yet to post. Just imagine a family having a good time. That would be us.

Sometimes it seems that we are living life in fast-forward. I don't even know what happened this last week. I think I took some tests...saw lots of patients. Rachel and the kids are doing great. Oh- we started working on the gingerbread house. Stay tuned for more on that. We are all excited for the break that is to come in just one week. Maybe then we can look back and figure out where the time has gone. Somehow, this break marks the half-way mark through my junior year. Woah! Didn't we just move here, like, yesterday? And now here we are, almost three years (and three kids) later. It's like that Kenny Chesney song- "Don't Blink."