Christmas 2021

It was a quiet Christmas this year. It is hard not having lots of little kids around anymore. Jessica's family (except Ali, who is in Florida) came for ham dinner. Right as we finished eating, we had a knock at the door, and the cute Reep family in our ward, was out caroling. They sang 4 songs accompanied by lovely bells. It made my night. Then we had a short program. Scott's family joined in on Zoom and so we had some nice Christmas music from their family. Jessica, Justin, and the kids acted out the Nativity. We opened P'J's. When they left, Doug and I watched Scrooge. It was too hot this year to even have a fire. 

 

New Teenage Driver - December 22nd, 2021

 Mandi finished her driving course yesterday, and she passed, so today she was able to go to the Driver's License Division and get her actual license. She is so excited to finally be driving herself around. Also, she has been working and saving her money for a long time to be able to buy a used car from the shop. It's a 2001 Toyota, and it's a little dinged up, but it is perfect for her first car. She got a good job at Home Depot to be able to pay the expensive car insurance. She said it is over $170 a month for her age. Look out world...Here she comes!!

Gingerbread House - December 18th, 2021

 Sam came to help rake up the last of the leaves. It was too cold to go out until later in the day, so he decided to make his gingerbread house. He had a hard time getting it to stick together. It took a few hours before he could put the candy on it. It didn't turn out how he hoped, but he had fun eating the candy anyway!

Watching Christmas Vacation - November 27th, 2021

 The last fun activity the kids planned for our anniversary weekend was that they had rented out the movie theater in Page just for our family. They made us all matching shirts with a saying from the movie. Some of Scotts family had to leave before the movie to drive home to catch a flight. We usually all watch this movie together on Thanksgiving day so this was a fun treat. We watched Christmas Vacation. We all know every single line of the movie. It was a blast!

That evening the rest of us who were still in Page went to the Christmas Parade downtown. They light up the floats. Santa comes at the end. It was a great way to end our special 50th Wedding Anniversary weekend, and to get us in the spirit for Christmas. I love Doug and hope we have many more happy years together, and I want to thank our kids and grandkids for the awesome weekend! I love you all!!!

50th Wedding Anniversary - November 26th, 2021

For my anniversary present Doug got down on one knee and gave me a beautiful new diamond ring. I love my shiny ring! I gave him a car cover for his 56 Chevy! 

 The reason we are all in Page is to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. The kids knew I wanted a new family picture of all of us, so they hired a photographer. We all met at Lone Rock (Lake Powell) and did a photo shoot for 2 hours. The weather was perfect and the water was smooth as glass. I can't wait to see the final photos when they are ready. Ali is in Florida and she is the only person that couldn't make it.

After the photo shoot we all came back to Brad's house and they had a party for us. They had a cake,  (the bakery spelled anniversary wrong on the cake....I would have never noticed if they hadn't have shown it to me!) The kids had all written about some of their favorite memories of us. Jessica made a scrapbook with the old pictures in them, and we will add new pictures from this weekend. They had Doug and I play a version of the Newlywed game, and the kids were surprised how well we knew each other. We hardly missed any questions!

One of the best things they surprised us with is... they had us re create a photo we had taken almost 40 years ago. They made us the  exact same shirts and found red shorts, etc. It was a lot of fun!!

Then we all went back to our rental houses and relaxed for a little while. Alex and Zack came to ours and we worked on some puzzles for a few hours.

That evening we all came back to Brads and we played games. Alex taught us a new word game and then we played the Psychiatrist game. It was a fun day.