Christmas Season Catch-up

We hope you had a great Christmas! We sure did!

Here is our family Christmas photo. The warmth of family more than makes up for the cold of the night.

What a great night we spent looking at the lights on Temple Square.

There aren't too many places more beautiful than Temple Square at Christmas time!

It really helps you remember what Christmas is all about!

We were so happy and blessed to have dad doing well this Christmas. He overcame pneumonia just a couple of weeks ago, so we felt very blessed!

Here is our 4 generations picture!

There is nothing quite as special as the love of a daughter and her dad.

Without question the best part of the week was having Jessica with us for 6 days! She is doing great!!!

One of our fun activities during the Christmas break was a day in the snow. It was great until it got cut short by a minor injury to Spencer's wrist.

It was a near perfect day to be out in the snow.

Jessica got her braces off in December, and is really enjoying smiling again!!!

Before going away to school, Jessy didn't know how to crochet, but just look at Jami showing off her new blanket that was lovingly hand made by Jessica!

Grandpa loves spending time with Will!

Even Max got treated at Christmas. Luke, Lynne & Tony's son kept going to the dog food bag and giving Max everything he wanted. Luke sure knew how to make Max his fast friend!

Jami's Christmas trip to Utah started a few days earlier than mine this year. She went up to be part of the wedding of one of her "Walkie Talkie" friends sons. It gave her the chance to spend a few extra days with Aly, Spence and Will.

Here is Jami with (left to right) Susan, Gaye and Tawnie. Other than the white knuckle drive to Salt Lake which included heavy snowfall through much of California all the way to Las Vegas, and then clear weather to Salt Lake, Jami had a great time with her friends!

We had a great evening caroling with Joyce, the Rays, Villanuevas, and Nelsons. Joyce said it was the first time in many years that she had been out caroling.

Spencer, Aly and Will came to California early in December so that Aly could participate in her families annual "Tamale Day". They spent a couple of days in Bakersfield with us, which gave us some quality time with our new grandson Will.

Will is such a happy baby!

We enjoyed a nice evening at the Creche festival. It was great to see all the different nativity scenes, and to spend the evening with our kids.

Our Christmas celebration included a fun get together with Jami's walking group the "Walkie Talkie's".

We enjoyed a great dinner, and even better friendship! What a great group!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Salt Lake City.
Our trip to Salt Lake came with 4 main objectives.
1. Build a fence at the house for Spence and Aly's dog Roxy.
2. Spend some quality time with Jessica, Spencer, Aly and Will.
3. Enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with the family.
4. Go to a Jazz game.
Jami drove up to Salt Lake a few days early to take some things to Spencer and Aly, and I flew up on Thanksgiving morning early.

We were really happy that dad felt up to attending dinner, as he had not been feeling too well earlier in the week.

It was really great to have lots of Jami's family around!

When you plan for dinner for 40 you had better have a big place to hold everyone, so we were glad that Lorie could arrange for us to use her church building for the afternoon.

Spencer and Aly spent the afternoon up at her brother's house in Roy, and Jessica couldn't get away from school this year so we were still missing our family for Thanksgiving dinner. Jami and I did get to go down to Provo early afternoon on Thanksgiving to see Jessica and spend a few hours with her which was the highlight of our day!!!!

Since I didn't get the chance to cook anything, I got to keep with my holiday tradition and do the dishes. By the end of the day, I was ready for bed!!!

On Friday afternoon Jami, Spencer, Aly, Will and I drove down to Provo to spend the evening with Jessica. It was so much fun to all be together as a family again! We laughed, talked and had dinner together before taking our anual family Christmas picture together.

Jesssica loves spending time with her nephew. I get the feeling she is going to spoil him for many years to come! Since I don't get the chance to be with him very much either, I took the opportunity to hold him for a while myself.

On Saturday we continued to work on the fence, and Jessica got the chance to leave school for a few hours to spend some free time with the family. We went up to Salt Lake where we were able to have lunch together, get to the store to buy her some necessities, and let her get the chance to see her grandpa before going back to Provo.

On Saturday night we took Will to his first Jazz game. It was really noisy, and he didn't like that too much, but thanks to Jami's sister Lynne, we got invited to watch the second half of the game from the Huntsman luxury box.

Will was very happy, even though the Jazz didn't play very well, and ended up loosing to New Jersey.

By the way, the fence got finished! Jami and I did a pretty good job if we do say so ourselves!!!! The trip home on Sunday was a marathon, as we left Salt Lake at 6:30 am, and didn't arrive in Bakersfield until shortly after 9:00 pm. We stopped for sacrament meeting in Mesquite Nevada, and made great time until we hit Las Vegas, and then our normal 4 hour drive turned into an 8 1/2 hour trip home. We loved the trip, hated the drive.