Our week has been go-go-go, and the weekend was even busier, but now that Christmas is in the rear-view mirror I thought we should catch you up on what’s been happening. Christy’s mom, Luana, flew in on Saturday the 15th, which allowed me to go back to work and focus on final Christmas shopping (Christy’s shopping had been wrapped up for weeks). It’s been a slower pace at work lately, so it leaves me with flexibility in getting other things done as well. However, I’m happy to say that the CFC campaign has raised more than we did last year ($2.3 million), although we might come up a little shy of our goal ($2,450,000). Still, I don’t feel too bad about that because I pushed for us to set a very ambitious goal and we won’t be too far short of it I believe. That’s all I will bore you with regarding work.
On Thursday Dec. 20th we had quite a snowstorm here. It started about 3:30 p.m. and by the time I got home around 5 p.m. we already had about 4-5 inches. Sammy had a preschool Christmas performance that night, which Christy and Luana attended but unfortunately I had to attend traffic school because I’d been cited for making an improper left-hand turn in Ogden (I didn’t turn into the closest lane). It’s just a good thing that Ogden doesn’t have any crime or safety issues so its police force can spend so much time at the end of each month issuing tickets to meet their “performance standard” a.k.a. quota. By the way, the officer teaching traffic school openly admitted there is a quota and that most of the policemen hate it. Luckily it had stopped snowing while I was there so everyone made it home that night without incident.
Christy’s brother John flew into town on Friday, and the rest of her family came the next day. I picked him up at the airport after having dinner with Uncle Bill, Scott and their family at Rodizio’s Grill in Salt Lake – Uncle Bill’s treat – since Scott was getting married the next day. On Saturday afternoon I drove down to the 5-Star Ranch south of Provo with Dan and Deanne to see the wedding, which was a lot of fun. Scott’s new wife is a spunky woman, so I see this marriage working out pretty well. Christy had her family Christmas party that evening, so she couldn’t make it – but Dan and Deanne dropped me off at their party in SLC on the way home. I came just in time for our family’s part in the program – we sang a Christmas song Luana wrote called “Once Upon a Silent Night.” I say “we” sang the song but in actuality it was Sammy, who stood on a chair, grabbed the microphone and belted it, word-for-word and with perfect pitch, at the top of his voice. There is no such thing as stage fright for that boy.
By the time we left I was on pins and needles because BYU was in the middle of their Las Vegas Bowl game vs. UCLA. We had set up the VCR to record it, and after getting home and making sure the game was over, we rewound the tape and started watching. Dan had listened to most of it on the radio but he stopped listening with about 1 minute left, so even he didn’t know the outcome. As most of you know, BYU blocked a 28-yard field goal with 3 seconds left in the game to preserve a 17-16 victory. They also ensured that yet another year of my life was taken from me thanks to another gut-wrenching, hand-wringing, nail-biting, down-to-the-last-second game.
Sunday brought our ward choir's Christmas program in Sacrament meeting. Christy is our ward choir director and, despite her self-critique, did a wonderful job in preparing the choir. The music was terrific and the choir sang better during the performance than it ever had in practice. For me it was a spiritual highlight of the year, although admittedly some of that was probably due to the fact that we didn't have to wrestle with two children throughout the meeting. Music is often my favorite part of worship.
Fast-forward to Christmas Eve. We all headed over to Dan & Deanne’s house, during yet another snowstorm, at about 5 p.m. and enjoyed a delicious meal of New Mexico tamales, posole (Deanne did a terrific job on that one!) and afterwards, Ris Krem – and yes, that should be capitalized along with all proper nouns. We exchanged a few gifts for the boys, but far and away the most entertaining thing were Deanne’s gifts: 8 homemade mini-marshmallow blow-guns made of PVC pipe. For the next 20 minutes chaos reigned supreme as marshmallow pellets whizzed through the air and many a casualty was incurred, thanks mostly to the aiming prowess of Tracen and his surprisingly powerful lungs. I guess all that pretend webbing and lasering has paid off for him. Dan actually got a marshmallow going with enough velocity that it stuck permanently to the wall… and rumor has it that more than one of the little white bullets were extricated some our underclothing that evening. Oh, but I nearly forgot to mention that before “Mini Iwo Jima” we had a nice Christmas program in which we re-enacted the Savior’s birth with a nice Christmas program in which the boys fought over which costume they got to wear. Sammy got to be the angel but was chagrined when we had to reprimand him for pulling a gun on the shepherds. He defended the action by claiming it was “a gun that shoots stars.” Well, we tried.
Christmas Day was great, of course. Riley got a mini-kitchen, which thrilled him to no end. Sammy received a kid’s digital camera and by the end of the day he’d snapped more pictures than I have in my lifetime and nearly drained all the battery power. But I’m sure there are some Pulitzer-prize winning photographs of our carpet, the TV and Grandma’s chin in there. Santa brought me a carry-on suitcase and Christy got me a Shop Vac – both things that I’d wanted. Christy received Crème Brule bowls, perfume and the Dan-in-Real-Life movie soundtrack on CD. And of course there was tons of chocolate, stollen toast and other goodies. That evening we dined on a delicious ham, fresh orange rolls and topped it off with carrot pudding and coconut cream pie for dessert. We also had some fun playing outside in the snow.
So you see, it's been a great week -- made even better of course by having Christy's family here to share it with us. There is nothing like being with family for the holidays. I wish we could have seen more of you, but I'm sure we'll have that chance in Christmases yet to come.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
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