Christmas 2009

Okay, sick or not, here I go.

We had a fabulous time in California this year. We left last Monday (the 21st) after Jeremy got off work. We were planning on leaving Tuesday morning, but there was supposed to be a huge storm, so we decided to leave Monday night and drive to Elko where Jeremy's aunt and uncle live (very convenient). So we had a very foggy yet safe drive Monday night and then we drove the rest of the way on Tuesday. The first couple hours were pretty snowy, but after that it was all blue skies. I don't think we could have timed it any better.

So we spent from Tuesday afternoon until Christmas morning with Jeremy's family. It was fun to stay in their new big house and get to visit with them. Jeremy's sister and her 3 kids and Jeremy's grandma also live there so we had a fun time with everyone. We played some games, went to the park, hung some pictures, went caroling, and ate lots of delicious food. Christmas morning we got up bright and early and had fun seeing what Santa brought everyone. It was fun to have our first Christmas with Eli! He didn't quite know what to do with everything, but he had a fun time playing with boxes and wrapping paper.

Then we headed over to my parents house (only 15 min. away). They didn't have any young kids over there, so even though we got there at about 10:30am, they were just barely up and ready to start exchanging gifts. So that worked out perfectly! We had fun having our second Christmas with them along with Heidi and my brother Steve who was home from his Air Force training. That day we played Monopoly (dad won), ate more yummy food and watched Elf that night.

Saturday we went down to visit my wonderful 90 year-old grandma in Modesto. I'm so glad we had a nice visit with her. I don't know how much longer she'll be around, but I hope it's a long time! We sang and played the piano for her and took her to lunch. She is a fabulous pianist and organist herself and taught piano for years and years. Now she lives in an assisted living center, but she was able to move her grand piano into one of the main areas, so every time we visit we share some music with her. (I forgot my camera that day, so if you want to see pictures, click here). Then on Sunday, my mom and I sang in church with Heidi accompanying us and we spent the rest of the day chatting and playing games.

I decided to do a slideshow since I have a lot of pictures:

That was our Christmas! We got a lot of wonderful gifts and hope everyone enjoyed what we gave them. It was nice to get a break from the cold and snow, but at the same time it's nice to be back home. We have zero exciting plans for tonight and we're happy about it. :) We're both still sick so we'll probably just curl up on the couch, watch a movie, and then go to bed early. Yea!