Christmas Time
Christmas has now come and gone. I just thought I should write a little bit of what has happened over the past week.
Last Monday was my family Christmas party. We arrived around 7:00 in the evening and were among the first to arrive. It's a huge gathering over at my parents house. It is loud, and energetic. After a little bit of socializing with grandmas recipe for slush, we all go into the family room. I usually try to get somewhere on the sectional couch because it is a little bit more comfortable than the other hard chairs. We started with an opening prayer and then moved on and started to do talents. After the first few talents my dad realized that he had forgotten all about doing the nativity first. For the nativity my brother got out an old one that he did and we saw his now grown children as little primary aged children. Then, the talents continued.
I had talked to my kids about the talent show and they both kind of ignored what I had said. But, just before we were going to go, our daughter was trying to come up with some music to play on her flute. She had some music, but opted to get a piece for "What Child is This?" because it was easier. The problem was, the sheet music she had had it in a lower key than she wanted. So, our son took the sheet music and hooked up his keyboard to the computer he put together and put Linux on it, and played it into there and then edited that sheet music to put it in the higher key. This we printed off and gave to her. We left 5 minutes after she had gotten that sheet music.
My families turn for the talents came along and our daughter played her piece. When they asked about our son, I told them that his talent was creating the music sheet for our daughter because he really did not want to get up and do anything. I guess he was going to play Silent Night on the piano, but since two others had already done so, he just let me do the talking to get him out of it.
Santa came, and handed out the gifts. I thought about talking to Santa outside afterward because this is the first Christmas he has had without having one of his sons around. I know that he has taken that death pretty hard, and I don't know that I blame him for that. I didn't get that opportunity though because I got stopped a couple of times.
Still, there were more talents and then everybody kind of sees what toys they can break that they just got. We were the first ones to leave.
I was told by my son that the Deacons were having their weekly activity on Tuesday evening. I didn't go to that because it is a time to spend with my family who were all at home. We just spent the time together and we needed to get a few things for the Christmas Eve party that was to be held at our house for my wife's family. My wife was slaving over the stove and trying to get the chicken thawed out as well as take care of whatever she could before the next day. She stayed up until around midnight to get things ready. I went to bed about a half hour before her. She worked so hard, and it is awfully straining on her to do so. I really appreciate all that she does. I don't tell her that often enough, but I do appreciate her.
I left work a little bit early on Wednesday because I knew that she would be needing some help. Things were a bit busy. She thought that she had taken care of enough that it wouldn't be busy, but that wasn't to be. She still slaved over getting everything just right. Of course, I had set up an extra table and then we had to find all the proper plates and knives and forks and so forth for both of the tables.
Pam came over a little bit early so she could prepare some of her stuff. She did the rice for us and some fruits. Brandon came in next with my wife's parents and her sister that lives with them. We also had Nathan show up. Ben was a no show, but Chris made it over with his new wife and baby. We haven't had much time to get to know Chris' new wife, so we talked a bit with her. We had a dinner that was kind of like Chicken Cordon Bleu, but an easy version of it. There was plenty of food and it was really tasty. We played a few games, including Eye to Eye, had some dessert, played more games and opened a few gifts from each other. Everybody left, and it was just starting to snow.
Christmas morning, my wife got up at 6:00 AM. I got up about 40 minutes after her and then after showering, we got the kids up. We opened the few gifts they had. Both of them were excited for their gifts, even though our son already knew what he was getting. We didn't really give anything to each other because we had spent our Christmas budget on other gifts instead. We need to go get something after Christmas is over for each other.
It had snowed all night, and when I looked outside I saw that there was a mess. We had snow drifts up to our house that were about two feet deep. That was probably for the first 7-10 feet of our driveway. It was heavy, and it was hard work. Thank goodness for my son who did a majority of the shoveling because I am wearing out too darn fast. We cleared our two car driveway area ignoring the third car and the RV pad that we have been keeping clear. We then headed out around 9:00 AM to get to my parents house. It was white out conditions when we left home. By the time we got to my parents house we had seen everything from blizzard to snow to rain and then no rain. It started to rain at my parents and in-laws around noon.
We had breakfast at my parents house and then there was the gift exchange there. We were quite excited to give my brother and his wife a picture pained by Jay B. Ward called "The Grace of God". It is a picture of Christ as a child on the lap of his father Joseph. It is a nice picture. We gave a smaller copy to my niece and her husband. I think they will both like them. If not, that's too bad because they were personalized with Jay signing them personally to them. We also gave a marshmallow gun to a nephew there. That looked like it could be plenty of fun.
We left there and went to the in-laws. Pam didn't show up for awhile, but we had dinner while there that had been made for Chantelle and her husband. They weren't able to make it over because of the bad weather (they had stayed the night near where we live). Chantelle did come out a bit later, and that was nice. We got home around 6:00 and there was another four inches of snow that needed shoveling. We took care of that.
Friday I had taken the day off of work. One of the first things I did was to go out and shovel a couple more inches of snow. This is getting old fast. Then a little later my son and I went out and shoveled a skiff that we had had, but we needed to get the end of our driveway as the plows had come by and we needed a way out. My son and I also went in to exchange one of the gifts that we gave the family (a Lan adapter for the Wii and the Internet) and got a wireless router instead. The net cost of that was $25. We hooked up the router and my son can now get stuff for his ipod touch anywhere in the house. My palm also now connects to the Internet and I am able to directly load in files made for the palm from the church website. I did have to get a new program for my palm that zips and unzips files because that is how most of the Mobipocket stuff is done. I can also directly download ebooks from the Salt Lake County Library System.
Saturday was a day of cleaning up a few things. My wife started to clean up some of the Christmas decorations, but the tree is going to have to wait for another day. Around 4:00 in the evening we headed out to the Gateway mall to meet Pam and Anne. We just went window shopping around there and then went to dinner. After that, my kids went with Pam and Anne to their home to spend the night. My wife and I went and looked at the lights at temple square (just in our car) and then headed home.
Sunday morning I got a call from Brother Ashton. It seems that our son was supposed to give a talk today. I told him he wasn't available. Our son says that something was said about it four weeks ago, but he hasn't been given a topic or anything else. He forgot about it.
When we were on our way out, Brother Johnson had come up into our driveway asking for help to get his car out of his driveway. He hadn't shoveled away the boulders that come from the snow plows and had tried to get through. We didn't seem to be getting anywhere, but then one other person came over to help. After a little more pushing it finally came out. We were late to church. I helped my wife set up and then went to be with the Deacons. They were playing around because as far as they could tell there wasn't a leader among them. I ruined that for them. We had the lesson and then I went in to help my wife. Both of us were tired and we left church not making it to sacrament meeting (the most important meeting of them).
We fell asleep, and then while my wife was still sleeping I logged into work. I had to look over some of my jobs for the weekend. They had all worked. I was hoping so, because when I logged in Friday evening, I found that some of the jobs that ran on Christmas had broken down. I also took care of a couple of other things on the Internet.
We headed to West Bountiful to pick up our kids. I played around with Pam and Anne's computer because they couldn't remember their wireless password. I never did get it fixed, but thinking back I should've powered off the wireless hub and powered it back on. We may have had it work after all. We watched the Dark Knight. My wife didn't like it and I loved it. I guess it was just too dark for my wife. We had a nice dinner and dessert and then left there.
That's about it. It is enough though.
It is definitely the Christmas season.
Last Monday was my family Christmas party. We arrived around 7:00 in the evening and were among the first to arrive. It's a huge gathering over at my parents house. It is loud, and energetic. After a little bit of socializing with grandmas recipe for slush, we all go into the family room. I usually try to get somewhere on the sectional couch because it is a little bit more comfortable than the other hard chairs. We started with an opening prayer and then moved on and started to do talents. After the first few talents my dad realized that he had forgotten all about doing the nativity first. For the nativity my brother got out an old one that he did and we saw his now grown children as little primary aged children. Then, the talents continued.
I had talked to my kids about the talent show and they both kind of ignored what I had said. But, just before we were going to go, our daughter was trying to come up with some music to play on her flute. She had some music, but opted to get a piece for "What Child is This?" because it was easier. The problem was, the sheet music she had had it in a lower key than she wanted. So, our son took the sheet music and hooked up his keyboard to the computer he put together and put Linux on it, and played it into there and then edited that sheet music to put it in the higher key. This we printed off and gave to her. We left 5 minutes after she had gotten that sheet music.
My families turn for the talents came along and our daughter played her piece. When they asked about our son, I told them that his talent was creating the music sheet for our daughter because he really did not want to get up and do anything. I guess he was going to play Silent Night on the piano, but since two others had already done so, he just let me do the talking to get him out of it.
Santa came, and handed out the gifts. I thought about talking to Santa outside afterward because this is the first Christmas he has had without having one of his sons around. I know that he has taken that death pretty hard, and I don't know that I blame him for that. I didn't get that opportunity though because I got stopped a couple of times.
Still, there were more talents and then everybody kind of sees what toys they can break that they just got. We were the first ones to leave.
I was told by my son that the Deacons were having their weekly activity on Tuesday evening. I didn't go to that because it is a time to spend with my family who were all at home. We just spent the time together and we needed to get a few things for the Christmas Eve party that was to be held at our house for my wife's family. My wife was slaving over the stove and trying to get the chicken thawed out as well as take care of whatever she could before the next day. She stayed up until around midnight to get things ready. I went to bed about a half hour before her. She worked so hard, and it is awfully straining on her to do so. I really appreciate all that she does. I don't tell her that often enough, but I do appreciate her.
I left work a little bit early on Wednesday because I knew that she would be needing some help. Things were a bit busy. She thought that she had taken care of enough that it wouldn't be busy, but that wasn't to be. She still slaved over getting everything just right. Of course, I had set up an extra table and then we had to find all the proper plates and knives and forks and so forth for both of the tables.
Pam came over a little bit early so she could prepare some of her stuff. She did the rice for us and some fruits. Brandon came in next with my wife's parents and her sister that lives with them. We also had Nathan show up. Ben was a no show, but Chris made it over with his new wife and baby. We haven't had much time to get to know Chris' new wife, so we talked a bit with her. We had a dinner that was kind of like Chicken Cordon Bleu, but an easy version of it. There was plenty of food and it was really tasty. We played a few games, including Eye to Eye, had some dessert, played more games and opened a few gifts from each other. Everybody left, and it was just starting to snow.
Christmas morning, my wife got up at 6:00 AM. I got up about 40 minutes after her and then after showering, we got the kids up. We opened the few gifts they had. Both of them were excited for their gifts, even though our son already knew what he was getting. We didn't really give anything to each other because we had spent our Christmas budget on other gifts instead. We need to go get something after Christmas is over for each other.
It had snowed all night, and when I looked outside I saw that there was a mess. We had snow drifts up to our house that were about two feet deep. That was probably for the first 7-10 feet of our driveway. It was heavy, and it was hard work. Thank goodness for my son who did a majority of the shoveling because I am wearing out too darn fast. We cleared our two car driveway area ignoring the third car and the RV pad that we have been keeping clear. We then headed out around 9:00 AM to get to my parents house. It was white out conditions when we left home. By the time we got to my parents house we had seen everything from blizzard to snow to rain and then no rain. It started to rain at my parents and in-laws around noon.
We had breakfast at my parents house and then there was the gift exchange there. We were quite excited to give my brother and his wife a picture pained by Jay B. Ward called "The Grace of God". It is a picture of Christ as a child on the lap of his father Joseph. It is a nice picture. We gave a smaller copy to my niece and her husband. I think they will both like them. If not, that's too bad because they were personalized with Jay signing them personally to them. We also gave a marshmallow gun to a nephew there. That looked like it could be plenty of fun.
We left there and went to the in-laws. Pam didn't show up for awhile, but we had dinner while there that had been made for Chantelle and her husband. They weren't able to make it over because of the bad weather (they had stayed the night near where we live). Chantelle did come out a bit later, and that was nice. We got home around 6:00 and there was another four inches of snow that needed shoveling. We took care of that.
Friday I had taken the day off of work. One of the first things I did was to go out and shovel a couple more inches of snow. This is getting old fast. Then a little later my son and I went out and shoveled a skiff that we had had, but we needed to get the end of our driveway as the plows had come by and we needed a way out. My son and I also went in to exchange one of the gifts that we gave the family (a Lan adapter for the Wii and the Internet) and got a wireless router instead. The net cost of that was $25. We hooked up the router and my son can now get stuff for his ipod touch anywhere in the house. My palm also now connects to the Internet and I am able to directly load in files made for the palm from the church website. I did have to get a new program for my palm that zips and unzips files because that is how most of the Mobipocket stuff is done. I can also directly download ebooks from the Salt Lake County Library System.
Saturday was a day of cleaning up a few things. My wife started to clean up some of the Christmas decorations, but the tree is going to have to wait for another day. Around 4:00 in the evening we headed out to the Gateway mall to meet Pam and Anne. We just went window shopping around there and then went to dinner. After that, my kids went with Pam and Anne to their home to spend the night. My wife and I went and looked at the lights at temple square (just in our car) and then headed home.
Sunday morning I got a call from Brother Ashton. It seems that our son was supposed to give a talk today. I told him he wasn't available. Our son says that something was said about it four weeks ago, but he hasn't been given a topic or anything else. He forgot about it.
When we were on our way out, Brother Johnson had come up into our driveway asking for help to get his car out of his driveway. He hadn't shoveled away the boulders that come from the snow plows and had tried to get through. We didn't seem to be getting anywhere, but then one other person came over to help. After a little more pushing it finally came out. We were late to church. I helped my wife set up and then went to be with the Deacons. They were playing around because as far as they could tell there wasn't a leader among them. I ruined that for them. We had the lesson and then I went in to help my wife. Both of us were tired and we left church not making it to sacrament meeting (the most important meeting of them).
We fell asleep, and then while my wife was still sleeping I logged into work. I had to look over some of my jobs for the weekend. They had all worked. I was hoping so, because when I logged in Friday evening, I found that some of the jobs that ran on Christmas had broken down. I also took care of a couple of other things on the Internet.
We headed to West Bountiful to pick up our kids. I played around with Pam and Anne's computer because they couldn't remember their wireless password. I never did get it fixed, but thinking back I should've powered off the wireless hub and powered it back on. We may have had it work after all. We watched the Dark Knight. My wife didn't like it and I loved it. I guess it was just too dark for my wife. We had a nice dinner and dessert and then left there.
That's about it. It is enough though.
It is definitely the Christmas season.
posted by Craig's Blog at 11:18 PM
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