December 23, 2009

Dear Family,

We had such a fun and relaxing time when we dropped in at the John and Jeannena’s home on Monday night to take them their Christmas treat. Of course, we had to wait until after the Westhora annual delivery of the bread Christmas tree before we felt “comfortable” to leave our home! On Sunday at church, Katie had skipped right past any formal salutation when she saw Sister Westhora and just asked, “Have we missed your tree delivery already?” So this year, we knew they were coming; the very next night! And it is already eaten by the way.

We stayed at the Mitchell’s for over three hours and were amazed how the time flew by. We came home loaded with treats. Besides the regular box of grapefruit, we came home with John’s monster chocolate turtles, his huge chocolate chip cookies, frozen Alaskan wild salmon (for Adrianne) and a Kitchen Aid stand mixer (for Katie). He showed Katie his HUGE stand mixers (he now has two) and he just gave her his older one. She is so excited; Christmas came early for her. She is SO lucky. I hope we see the outcome of its use soon. She has a cupcake picked out for Christmas.

After a late night at the Mitchell’s home, the girls and I sleepily drove to Salem for a visit with Scott. Dad had visited him last Friday as I kept Adam busy and thinking that Dad was on work errands (he did do one work errand). He said he had a great visit with Scott. Scott was very excited to report that he had been able to talk with Kyre over one and half hours one day by calling her back three times. It costs him a lot to call Albany since it is a different exchange even though it is closer to Albany than Beaverton is to Salem! As much as we might try to meet his visiting family needs, Scott is most happy when he has good communication with Kyre.

At our visit on Tuesday we mostly reported on the weekend visit with the grandchildren. He also was able to get up to date on Katie and Adrianne’s lives. He asks some very detailed questions since he has the time to read the family news more carefully than most family members! I see everyone playing games and some day I would like to play a game with Scott. I should teach him our way of playing speed scrabble since his children love it so much, especially Alina. I believe I will get her the Bananagram game since it is a version of speed scrabble. I asked her if she gets our packages and it sounds like she gets many of them.

The girls and I have done some last minute shopping and preparing for the meals for Christmas with the boys this week. Nate got tickets through Zappos to the Las Vegas bowl so he took Morty. Dad and I enjoyed watching it in our warm home with the girls; it looked so cold and windy for Las Vegas! I was so glad that we won, no creamed our opponents; we get far too much negative razzing being true blue Cougar fans with some of our friends. And the funniest part is we never even put a thought into the schools from which they graduated. Utah who? Oregon who? Nate did warn Morty that if he was wearing University of Oregon clothing for the bowl game that he would not go with him! Good for Nate; I warned Morty that he was a guest of Nate’s and should respect his requests. I had a last minute Primary work party called to finalize the new teacher binders but announced that I could not come until after the game was over; one must set some priorities you know!

Today is our widow bread and chili day and then the next is Christmas Eve. It is so hard to believe it came so quickly. Nate arrives tomorrow and Morty on Thursday; we are looking forward to them coming and wish Aaron was also going to be here.

The last two weeks have been both busy and fun as we prepared for Christmas with the help of Adam. He is such a WILLING helper and loved crossing things off of the list posted each day on the kitchen door frame. Remember those days? He also was good at working on his own with his homework and reading each day. I just realized that I forgot to finish signing off his reading minutes so I hope he remembers them for Aunt Lynn’s signature; some days there were quite a few minutes.

Dad had a party with his Primary class and they worked on some Faith in God activities so Adam joined in. I started a fresh book for him so I could mark what he had done while here and what he could remember that he had not marked off recently. Dad and Adam worked a bit in his Webelos book also.

We had a very interesting and fun trip to the zoo this time. Dad learned that the keepers were giving Christmas present and treats to the Primates on Thursday morning so we went t watch them open their gifts. It was quite interesting and entertaining. Then we visited the Serengeti visit that opened late this summer. It was fantastic. Plus it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. The picture of the cheetah is real; he is that close to Adam. Adam is sitting in the driver’s seat of a jeep and the glass wall is the windshield (the cheetah is laying on the hood of the jeep engine.

Wendi arrived on Friday morning and went with Dad and Adam to pick up Kyre and the girls. They all returned in enough time to get settled and play a bit before we headed to the ward Christmas party. We had our picture taken with Santa, learned a game with bells and had a great meal. I had to leave for an airport run during the dinner to get Adrianne. She had all of Katie’s luggage, which was bulky storage totes since Katie is moving back here to take her last class online to graduate. Adrianne had to handle it all on this end because Katie accepted the offer to be bumped. That will really help to fund any needed flights with winter.

Katie didn’t get home until after 11:30 after flying through Los Angeles and San Jose to get home. She called from Los Angeles wishing she could stay the night there to run out to Titos Tacos! Adrianne had a Christmas party at the barn that she was trying to get to right after her flight so she did not want to be bumped. Of course, when Katie handed me the voucher she made some remark to Adrianne about being the favorite child to sacrifice her time and I was on the phone with Morty so he carried the moment even farther saying it was too bad that Katie had to go to that length to be the favorite child!

Saturday was full of Mickey waffles, games, making gingerbread houses, games, bike riding, games, jumping on the tramp, games, Zoolights and more games! I could not believe the crowds at Zoolights! We arrived 20 minutes after it opened and the zoo parking lot was full. I guess it was because the rain hadn’t started as forecasted and it was relatively warm for a winter night. But inside the zoo, we didn’t feel crowded; it was very pleasant. They have added lots of lights, which they may have added last year but we skipped going in the deep snow and frigid temperatures of last Christmas holiday!

Sunday morning was our early Christmas celebration with Scott and Kyre’s family. This is what we call our “grandparents weekend” with their family. Really though, as I think about it, what it ends up being is their family Christmas weekend with our home as the setting, as I realize that I get very little time to actually play and interact with my grandchildren as I facilitate their gathering. Plus, since this Christmas had to be more homemade, as children, they probably didn’t appreciate all the time and energy that went into making their gifts since they weren’t toys or gadgets. Oh well, this has caused me to realize and remember the years I used to try and make all my gifts as a young mother and I love that feeling of anticipating someone opening a gift into which I have put so much of myself. I hope to continue that in years to come even if I am not compelled by finances. I LOVE being so excited for someone to open a gift that I have spent hours preparing and hoping they will love. Scott and Kyre’s family were lucky to have Uncle Nate as their sibling in the Christmas family gift rotation. He is a fun uncle and got them some new family games to play when they get together at Kyre’s home. He was especially generous to Wendi since she is many miles away and gave her some kind of electronic device called a Flip (or something like that) that will allow her to upload, very simply, videos of herself to her Facebook so her brother, sisters and mom can all enjoy her college experiences by seeing them quickly on the computer!

I like that we were able to attend church together and have most of the grandchildren in our Primary. All the auxiliaries had a choir that sang in the Christmas program; they were beautiful. I had set my expectations very low as to them being involved with our Primary choir even though we went over the songs and some already knew them. I learned a long time ago that to survive the holidays as a mother you must learn to “expect what you are going to get”. It makes it easier to laugh and allow yourself to feel, but then shrug off the disappointed feelings of your efforts not being appreciated, when a child is in tears because they didn’t get what they wanted or any of the other hurts that can accompany the exhaustion of holiday preparations.

After church we had time to come home and have a wonderful family dinner and even play a couple of games before everyone had to say goodbye. It was a lovely ending to the weekend so that everyone had the opportunity to leave the grandparents house feeling content for the chance to experience the weekend. I didn’t travel down to Keizer, Albany or Sweet Home this time but Dad allowed me to stay home so I could turn my attentions to preparing for the week to come with Nate and Morty’s arrivals. What I really planned to do was download the weekend pictures and write the family news that evening but you can obviously realize that I didn’t get that done. I think I sat down and kept falling asleep!

My favorite moments of the holiday season are times when we have just finished a meal and the work is done so we can sit and relax and just talk. I LOVE doing nothing and relaxing with my children! I look forward to more meaningful holiday moments yet to come this season. I love you all and have a Merry Christmas to those who cannot join us. I will enjoy hearing your voices on Christmas when you call

Love, Mom