The past week has been filled with fun activities and lots of games. Our college students came home for Christmas. We only had 4 full days together so we squeezed in lots of fun. We played lots of games: Settlers of Catan, A Ticket to Ride, Mario Kart - Wii, Guitar Hero - Wii, Racko, Phase 10, and more. We had our annual White Elephant and Volleyball at the DeWitts. Note to self: buy kneepads for next year. We ended up with some great white elephant gifts - vinyl sweat shorts, colorful flowery kids bike helmet, a real white elephant earring holder, a christmas blanket, and a Bob the Builder mini lunch pail with snacks. We decorated a Gingerbread house. We went to see the Reflections of Christ display in Mesa. The photographer and the musicians were there to perform and autograph books and DVD's. It was nice. I took the kids to a Cardio Body Sculpt class at GCC. All the ladies there were curious as to who they belonged to. They have asked about the kids every day since then. The kids and I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens also. The bonus to that was that a world-famous glass blower, Dale Chihuly, had many pieces on display throughout the gardens. We saw cacti, trees, bushes, and grasses native to desert areas. We saw some displays of Native American grinding stones, pots, living areas, etc. But I think we'd all agree that the glass sculptures were just awesome! A real treat! We all went to the church to play some Pickleball. Dad had everything set up and gave us the rules and let us go. That was fun too. Frank Gallardo came over one night and we had pizza and talked about the good old days at Cortez High. We opened the Elf Chart gifts. That is always a hit. We woke up on Christmas morning. Scott was a little slow to get up - Shanna helped by playing a little "Hokey Pokey" on the piano. Before long all the gifts were unwrapped. We had our traditional breakfast of "eggs erroneous". We all tried out our gadgets and gizmos. Evan and Shanna went on a walk in the rain to try out his new GPS unit. The real highlight - for mom and dad at least - was a call from Elder Selin in Maryland. It was great to hear his voice and his laugh! We ended the day with a nice Christmas dinner (a first for us)! And last of all a Christmas Miracle! I had two Amaryllis plants start to grow and then sort of stop. I wanted to have them in beautiful bloom for Shanna and I failed. Lucky for me my mom brought over her healthy flower and it decided to bloom on Christmas day. Three of the 5 flowers opened and helped to beautify our day. But alas all good things must come to an end and this morning Evan and Shanna left to spend some time with her family in Oregon. We loved being together for those 4 days.
No comments:
Post a Comment