Our first Christmas in our house was when Rich sold his house and was living with us for a period of time.  We moved into his house with him for a while, I don’t remember exactly how long it was, bit it was when Morrie and Genee returned from their second mission so we needed somewhere to go.  Rich offered us his house because Lisa had left and the girls were in Idaho.  We moved in there for a while because we were in transition as well.

While we were living there, Genee approached Jean and offer her the house that she owned when Reed, Jean’s dad, when he was alive.  She said she would like to keep it in the family.  We accepted the offer and prepared to move.  Now, I am not real sure why, but before we moved into this house we moved in with mom and dad in a 3 bedroom apartment.  The thing that made it interesting was that Ann and Terry were also living with mom and dad because they also purchased a home on Amber Lane, Sandy and they were in the process of remodeling it. Jean and I were waiting for the current renters to move out of our house.  These renters were taking their sweet time moving.  I finally had to give them a final date because we all lived in mom and dad’s apartment for about 3 months and it was real crowded.

After we finally got into our house, Rich sold his house and we offered him to a room.  It was not, because he left a brand new house with lots of room and moved into a small bedroom and a old bathroom.  I am not real sure why we moved from Rich’s house when we did instead of staying until he moved,   t we did.

Now, the reason I named this story the first Christmas is because we had Rich’s girls down for that Christmas.  Lee was 4 and Corey was 2.  Jean reminded me that Rich purchased a few loud instruments for the girls for that Christmas because he said he could send all the load items back to Idaho.  That was our first Christmas in this house.

I remember that Lee and Corey would pile some pillows at the bottom of the stairs in the basement and jump from the stairs into the pillows.  Rich’s girls thought that looked fun so they started following the boys.  They kept moving up the stairs and daring each other.  Now the boys were younger and shorter so they had no problems jumping from the higher the stairs, but the 2 older girls were taller.  As they were approaching the top stairs, I am not sure which one did this, I believe Rachel, but I could be wrong, they jumped and in order to make it to the pillows they had to jump higher.  As they did, Rachel hit her head on the top of the staircase.  Jean said she did need stitches, I could not remember, but it stopped the fun and she was in pain.

Those times were very busy for the whole family and we all worked together to keep a roof over our heads.  I think Debbie may have been on her mission at this time so she missed all the fun.

I do have to add that when we were in mom and dad’s apartment, mom and dad lived in their bedroom, Ann and Terry had a bedroom for them and their kids, Jean and I lived in the living room with the boys.  It was almost like living as pioneers in a one room cabin.  I don’t know how mom and dad did it, but you know them, they would give you the shirt off their back for the family.

I bet Ann and Terry did not like that situation.  They were there first and we just butted in.  Interesting times.

You all are welcome to add to this story to help me remember.  My mind is a little foggy.