An Arizona Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Wellesley/Narnia/Christmas!

There are even reindeer on Augusta Way:

I have to say that we were very happy to leave the freezing cold and tons of snow and get to sunny kind of warm Arizona!  What joy to join our great family and Josh there!  First things first: Girls' Night Out to the Nutcracker!

Wow did we have fun with those kids over the holidays. We enjoyed everything from back rubs on the stairs to wonderful food in the days before Christmas. 

The kids' piano recital was fantastic. They performed at a Senior Living Center where the kids had an appreciative audience besides just their parents and the senior seemed to love it too.  One of Dave and Shawni's friends who is in their bishopric and a great jokester said that he saw dad falling asleep and was afraid that someone would come and wheel him away!  The best part for me was that when we went around to talk to the cute folks afterward I was admiring their nice place to live and two ladies warned me that I wouldn't be allowed to come until I was fifty and then they complemented my on my children's fine performance.  I was elated until I realized that they probably couldn't see me! 

Much to our delight Jonah and Aja popped in on Christmas Eve Eve and we had so much fun eating, playing games and watching the kids love playing together.  Dumb, I didn't take one picture...but I'm sure Shawni did!

It was the newlyweds' first Christmas and Julie's first Christmas away from home. The kids loved having them around and I think they had a pretty good time too!

Charity sent everyone Christmas Crackers which we had a great time with at our Christmas Eve dinner. We loved her loving notes and the great crowns and fabulous English chocolate and treats!  Another cracker party coming at Baliwood next week for the rest of the comer-homers!

Dinner included a great talk about Mary's trip to Bethlehem that night (there's more than one right  way to do a Jerusalem Supper...and I have to say the food was better!)

A talent show ensued

Of course we all loved nativity play, which grandfather narrated in Grandma Ruthie's absence.  The costumes were perfect...thanks to Saren's great sewing skills and perfect wardrobe planning! 

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Great acting this year and a great time was had by all until a little lamb  (Lucy) stole the baby Jesus.  Havoc broke loose until we traded him for a toy dog!

Christmas morning was wild and so much fun with all those kids!!!

With Grandfather happily looking on...

 

Needless to say, this was a Christmas to remember forever!  It was our first to be as someone else's house to enjoy the grandkids in their own environment and I must admit that it was pretty cushy! We still stayed up until after midnight but we got to watch that crazy Christmas Story while we worked. So fun! 

Yesterday, Bob and Marva came for breakfast and then we went to their house and enjoyed a lovely dinner and conversation with that great family. They have left us in the dust on grandchildren...32!  How blessed we are to be almost related!

A great highlight was talking to Charity for a whole hour!  Thanks to Noah we all got on phones and took our few minutes to talk to our great missionary!  We are praying mightily for Julian to be baptized tomorrow!  What a great joy the gospel of Jesus Christ is to us, especially at this season of joy and peace!

Love to all and profuse thanks to Shawni and Dave and those adorable Pothiers for spoiling us!  (And a special thanks to Josh for the airport runs, for taking care of Julie and Eli AND for teaching me how to make my blog pictures BIG!) 

Celebrate!

Celebrate is a good work for this particular Christmas season!  Since it's our first year to really be in our new house, we decided to celebrate with a big...and I mean really BIG Christmas tree!  We got a great deal on it off Craig's list.  We knew we needed large but we weren't quite expecting it to be that large!  The guys who sold it to us lives just around the corner in the next development and just happened to have a truck to deliver it for us. Are we happy to have Eli and Julie around to help with the decos!  It came with lights (approximately a million) and but the base alone weighs 200 pounds. You should have seen dad and I giggling as we tired to move all the furniture and drag it across the floor to the middle of the room without scratching the bamboo. We were on our backs, pulling it along inch by inch until we eased it into place.  It's pretty fun now that it's in place and "decked" a bit although we do have a few extra deep gouges in our floor from trying to get the tin star to say on the top...never could make it happen!  Sharing it with you who will be coming home for Christmas will be fun, but for those who aren't (Pothiers, Shumways, Tal and Charity here's peek, although pictures just don't do it justice and especially because I can't find time to figure out how to make blog pictures BIG! 

 

 

 

Next reason for celebration...finally...SNOW!  Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas! 

 

Definitely the best thing to celebrate this weekend was Jonah's graduation!   We are so proud of he who with the help of Aja and Craig Peterson at USU was finally able to grab ahold of that crazy diploma.  It was so great to see him "walk" albeit through the snow...kind of a family tradition for that family. Same thing happened on their wedding on March 10th!

 

 

Thank goodness for Eli (again) to represent the siblings! 

 

When Dad graduates, the whole family graduates! 

 

 

After eight years of "hard labor"!

It's always great to have cute little Grandma to celebrate with!

During the graduation, Ana accidentally dropped Aja's Iphone down this grate.  Luckily we were able to get it off and lower Ana down about five feet to retrieve it!  Never a dull moment!

 

After the ceremonies we celebrated at a new restaurant called Hamiltons that was fabulous!  Karen happened to be in town to visit Patrick and check on Grandma and Craig (who helped Jonah get in touch with the right people to walk this thing through) and his wife Maradee joined us as well!  So fun!

 

 

(Sorry, such bright light coming from those windows!)

It was great to have this adorable family with us for the weekend. On Friday I got to take care of Elsie while Jonah and Aja, Ana and Camden were treated to some ski instructions from Kevan.  A great time was had by all.  That night was our ward party so we got actually have kids with kids at a Christmas Party for the first time in years! 

Aniston was off on her own getting ready for the magic show!

This was truly the beginning of the Christmas season for us!  Eli and Dad went to a Jazz game last night and we had so much fun with them earlier in the week when we finally got to see their cute, spacious new apartment beautifully decorated with lots of class!  They're having a terrific year as well.  They have just decided to go ahead with the Imagine Learning Conference in January so we get to have Noah and Kristi stay on for a week after Christmas for that.  Are we lucky or what?!!  Can't wait to see many you in the next two weeks.  These holidays are truly days to celebrate!