We feel so blessed that we have been able to spend time with family this Christmas season. Sunday evening, we went over to my sister's house for dinner. We brought chocolate pie, and she made us a very nice ham dinner. We opened presents together and had a great time. The kids were thrilled with the Harkin's gift cards from the Akers.
Christmas Eve Event though it was Christmas Eve, it was still a Monday so I had laundry to do. The boys helped me a lot with their clothes. I am teaching them how to wash their own. Andrew and Emily already wash their own clothes. We also got to "chat" with Nathaniel on Google Hangouts like usual. I bought two of these mini Christmas trees. I sent one to Nathaniel in his Christmas package, and the other is set up in our front room. I like having the same one he has.
For dinner, we met Carol and Erin at Rancho de Tia Rosa's. It's always been Michael's family's tradition to have Mexican food on Christmas Eve, so we have tried to keep up the tradition.
On our way to dinner, Michael received a text that a family in our neighborhood needed some help with Christmas for their kids. So after dinner, instead of going home we went to Target and bought some presents. They were very grateful. The kids followed the rules, and didn't wake us up until 7am on Christmas day. They did a great job buying their Secret Santa gifts for one another, and each child made a card or present for Mom and Dad.
Emily made this photo board for Michael
The boys loved their gifts from Papa and Nana. Emily and I got to go shopping with Papa for our gifts. :-)
Andrew asked for a 5lb Hershey's bar, but he was pretty happy with this 3lb one.
Daniel is already on book 4 of the Calvin and Hobbes collection!
Of course, the highlight of my day was talking to my boy! We started our video call at about 2:15pm. We loved talking to him! I was able to Skype with Dad, and I held the phone up to the camera so Dad and Nathaniel could have a few minutes to talk. Carol and Erin came over at about 3pm and also had some time to talk to him. We had to finish our call a little before 4pm. He had said we would get 90 minutes, and we got even a few more. We ended the call with Nathaniel bearing his testimony and we had a family prayer together.
Here is a short message from him:
After the call, we had dinner and opened presents with Grandma. The kids were excited to get spending money and this huge piano.
Here they are the day after Christmas, playing Monopoly: Cheater's Edition.
We had planned to go on a trip to Flagstaff so the kids could play in the snow, but there wasn't any snow so we postponed our trip. We originally made plans to have our anniversary dinner on Jan 4, but since we were in town we went to a fancy dinner at Ruth's Chris in Scottsdale. I love that place! Especially when I have a gift card, lol!
On Friday, we used one of Jonathan's gifts, which was 12 passes to Makutu's Island play park. He wanted his cousins to go, and they all had a fun time.
Today was Daniel's last day in Primary. He is pretty excited about that! I'm excited that church will start at 10am next week, instead of 8am!!!
We love it when Papa comes to visit for Christmas! It is the best gift I could ask for! He arrived on Tuesday afternoon. I parked in the short-term
parking garage, and as soon as I got off the elevator and headed to look at the
monitors I saw Dad walking through the checkpoint. That was good timing! As we were near the baggage claim waiting for
the bags from his flight, I saw Sarah Williams, who we knew from Alabama, walking toward baggage
claim. She was on the same flight as
Dad, coming home from University of Texas in Austin. We talked with her for a little bit and
helped her get her bags to the curb. I
got to say “hi” to her mom, my friend Teresa, for a minute.
We left the airport and went to Dollar Tree
to buy wrapping paper. I bought about
two dozen rolls! Then we went to Panera
Bread for lunch. It was great, as
always. We picked up Emily at school because she was
bringing home eight candles from her fundraiser and couldn’t get them home on
the bus. Jonathan came home
and was so happy to see Papa! We drove
to Sossaman to pick up Andrew, who had to bring the euphonium home. Somehow we missed Daniel, and he had to walk
home (it's only a few blocks). Dad found the rock that was stuck
in my tire, so he and Andrew and Daniel all went to Fletcher’s to take care of
it. Jonathan was so
excited to go to the wash today. At
first, I told him he could only go to the park, but once Andrew was available
he took him to the wash. Daniel and Dad
went there, too, and found a kindness rock.
I took a picture and posted it on Facebook.
We had chicken noodle soup for dinner, and
then the kids had to finish their homework and chores. Michael
and Emily finished all of the Scout awards (Andrew helped, too), which was a huge job.
On Wednesday morning, we got all the kids off to school and wrapped presents all morning. Dad did most of the wrapping while I got everything organized. I did a lot of wrapping as well, though. We were able to get it all wrapped, put under
the tree or hidden in the closet, and cleaned up all the trash and boxes.
That afternoon, I baked the Christmas cookies. Dad helped a lot, putting the pans in the
oven and taking them out for me. We got
done a little after 5:30pm. Then we had to get ready for the Court of Honor. Michael and
Andrew had already gone early, and Andrew conducted. We tried
to take the Odyssey, but the tire that had the rock was now flat so we took the
Sienna. Andrew got a number of merit
badges and also his 1st Class rank, and Daniel earned his Scout
rank.
Thursday was a very full day. It was the big day for our work activity
and family party.Sister Councilman’s funeral was that morning, so Michael and I went to that
at 10am.I still can’t believe she is
gone.The funeral was over a
little after 11am, and Michael and I left and went to the office and then to Feed My Starving
Children.Everyone loved it!We had a great time packing the meals and
singing along to the great music they played.Many of the employees commented on how much they loved it, and they hope
we’ll do it again next year.
While we were gone, Dad stayed at home.He took our tire to Fletchers that morning,
but they couldn’t find the leak.When
Emily got home, they went shoe shopping.Then they put together the gingerbread house
that afternoon.
After Feed My Starving Children, we went home
to get ready and bring the family to Jake’s Unlimited for the family work party.That was amazing as well!It was great to meet everyone’s
families.Dad, Andrew, and I rode the bumper cars. We also had fun playing the SpongeBob game
with the coins, and a round of Ski ball.Everyone insisted that I needed
to play laser tag, which I hated.I
don’t think my gun was working properly.I got second to last place.We
all went bowling, and I won!😊Michael was not
happy, lol.By then it was almost 9pm.Then the kids said, “Now we need
to have an air hockey tournament.”I
just wanted to go home!I did play a
game with Michael and I beat him 7-4.I
was so happy to finally beat him at that stupid game!
Photo booth
Dad and the kids decorated
the Christmas cookies on Friday morning. They
did a great job!
When they were
done, we did a little clean-up and got ready to go to lunch. After lunch, we went to Emily’s recital.
Next, we went to our session at Feed My Starving Children. I had signed us up as a family a long time
ago, because I knew Dad would like to go. It
was after that that we decided to go as a company, and that’s how we ended up
going two days in a row. It was nice,
though. We all had a great time.
This
morning, Emily drove Papa and Andrew to Milano Music so that we could get the
euphonium repaired. Michael and
I drove the boys to IHOP to meet them for breakfast. We had to take Michael’s Pilot because the
tire on the Odyssey was low again. We
had to get it fixed today. The wait was
50 minutes at IHOP, so we went to Village Inn instead. Dad had wanted to take the kids to IHOP for
Grinch pancakes, but that was too long to wait. So,
Michael took the kids to the movies, and Dad and I went back to get the
Odyssey, fill the tire with air, and drive it to Honda. Michael and Jonathan went to see The Grinch,
and Emily, Andrew, and Daniel saw Wreck It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the
Internet. Everyone enjoyed their movie,
even Michael who really didn’t want to see The Grinch. Once the car was done, we went home and everyone else was already there. Around 5pm, we left for Osaka for
dinner. We had a great time and loved
the food, as usual. Dad really liked his
steak.
After dinner we were going to go
to the World of Illumination lights, but we stopped in downtown Gilbert on the
way to see the Light the World machine.
The line was crazy long, like wrapped around the building, so we just
slowly drove past and then drove to Tempe for the lights. The line to get in was so long! It took us an hour to finally get in. I had even pre-purchased the tickets. The light
display was amazing! It was a drive-thru
one, and we loved it!
We got home around 9pm. The boys took a bath and Dad and I played two
games of backgammon—Dad won both.
We went to church this morning at 8am.It was only for one hour.The Cundiffs spoke and did a nice job.The Primary sang a medley of Christmas songs,
and the choir sang as well.
After church, we went back home so Dad could pack, and
then we all played Phase 10 together.
Jonathan won. I had to take Dad
to the airport around 11:15am. It’s
always hard to say goodbye.
Emily had her flute recital today. She did an amazing job! I love to hear her play the flute! Here is her flute solo, "Overture Miniature from The Nutcracker"
She also played a piano solo, "Never Enough" from The Greatest Showman
She was also in the group performance of "Silent Night"
Andrew had his band concert tonight. He is in the Jazz band also, so we got to hear him on seven different songs. The Jazz band was really good! Andrew had a special part in this song, "Black Forest Overture." It wasn't exactly a solo, but if you listen at 1:49, you'll hear him playing a different tone than the other instruments. He was pretty excited about it.
Here is his favorite Jazz band song of the night, called "Blue Skies."
Michael and I were lucky enough to go to two concerts this weekend! On Friday night, we went to dinner and the Phoenix Symphony with Carol. We had dinner at the Compass Grill. It's a restaurant on top of the Hyatt Regency, and it's in a circle that rotates. It makes a full rotation in one hour, and you can see the entire Phoenix skyline. After dinner, we walked across the street to the Phoenix Symphony. It was called A
Cirque Holiday Spectacular. I didn’t
realize that; I was just told we were going to the symphony. Carol invited us to go since some investment bankers were trying to schmooze her. I
was so pleasantly surprised with the symphony!
I thought we would just be listening to music, but they had a whole
troupe and they danced and performed and there was even some comedy. One lady was amazing on the trapeze. Another did an entire routine with gold
hula-hoops. One man did an entire
routine on two strips of fabric suspended from above. He did this really cool death drop, and he
also did the splits—hands free! The
contortionist was amazing! Her legs went
beyond the splits. Just when you thought
it couldn’t get more amazing, it did! It
was so much better than anything on America’s Got Talent, and it was right in
front of us. We were in the front,
center section in the fifth row! The
seats were amazing and the show was spectacular! This picture was taken in the lobby of Symphony Hall.
On Saturday night, we had tickets for the whole family to see The Forgotten Carols. I still have the CD from about 25 years ago that was signed by the artist, Michael McLean. I stood in line at the BYU Bookstore for over an hour to get his autograph. I remember seeing the performance of The Forgotten Carols when I was in college, but I didn't remember much about it. The show was wonderful! The music and
singing were so amazing! When it was over, Jonathan asked me what I thought and I said
it was wonderful; he said, “I liked it just a little bit more than that.” I love that he loves music!
We've seen so many concerts lately, and they have all been amazing!
