December

 

Let it snow!  This year, as part of Jacob and Jason's Christmas present, we purchase ski passes for up at Brighton.  Since we've had good snow they went one day over Thanksgiving break and then a few times more.  Jacob has wanted to work on his snowboarding so one of the days he and Jason went up and Jacob boarded rather than skied.  This is the only picture I have so far of their adventures.  They have been going with the Ahyous.

December started out slowly.  Jason left for a 2 week trip to Houston the Monday after Thanksgiving.  He had to stay the full 2 weeks--the person organizing it said she wanted them to be together over the weekend to bond.  

They ended up being done with classwork on Thursday and didn't do anything over the weekend.  

Jacob and I were bored that Saturday so we called Luke, our neighbor, and I took the boys to Airborne to jump.

During the pandemic Airborne took the time to do some remodeling.  They got rid of a section that used to have more foam pits you could jump into, some individual sections where you would do hand-over-hand types of activities etc.  The boys said they added more trampolines, but they wish they had left the other things.

On Sunday MarySue and Randy had everyone over for dinner.  

I have done a monthly (more or less) lunch with 3 sisters in my ward for about 10 years now. I call it lunch with the Julies.  In December we have usually gone to Village Inn because Teresa, the non Julie, loves their peppermint pie.  

During Covid the Village Inn near us closed.  I called another one to see if I could get a pie, but they have changed pie vendors and don't carry it.  So I made one!  I got the recipe from Cakes by Courtney.  Turned out well and we had a fun visit.  

Back row: Lorraine Daly, Paul and Chris Soresnson,
Cari Bryant, Lori Harward, Jason, Tina Ackerman,
Tori Potestio, Steve Smith.  Couch: Dianne
Hammons, Becky Vogler, Tori Potestio, Margaret
Pearson, Sherry and Lloyd Jones.  Front: Me,
Elroy Voger, Clark White, Lorraine Vanderly (Rob, 
her husband is taking picture).

Jason finally arrived home on Friday and that night we went over to Tori Potestio's home for our annual Elroy's Christmas party.  Fun to see people, but didn't really get much chance to visit. 

On Sunday we had Ahyous over for dinner.  Here are the boys and Tenyea playing video games.

Jason left again on Monday for meetings in Houston.  He was gone until Thursday this time.  During the entire 3 weeks he was gone it snowed SEVERAL times.  I shoveled a lot!

On Saturday, December 17th, it was Joy and Matthew's 34th wedding anniversary.  It was also Linnea's wedding day!  She married Bryce Baugh and it was a beautiful wedding and reception. 

Kristina's family (most) was there.  Jessica flew in with her boyfriend Keith.  He is such a great guy.  He is 31 and a convert of about a year to the Church.  He is nice, friendly, and so easy to get to know.  They seem so happy.  Will be interesting to see what happens with them.  

Family picture at the wedding

Most of December Marcia, sometimes Sherrie, and I walked at the mall due to snow.  Here we are walking before Christmas.

In September Jacob's jaw began to start popping when he opened his mouth.  Here is a picture to show the jaw.  The jaw is the only part of the body to have a hinge joint, to open, and a slide, to move it around.  

At the back of the jaw, Jacob's slides back too far, and when he opens his jaw, it slides back into place, which causes the popping.  

Prepping for the mold.

First day of Christmas break we went to a TMJ specialist and he is being fitted with a mouth guard for at night.  Jacob is a teeth grinder at night.  The Dr. said that when this problem occurs, if you try and fix it before 20, it will usually go back into place.  But if you do it after 20 it will not go back to normal.  Interesting.  

We went sledding with the Anderson (our neighbors across the street).  There is a hill in her sister's neighborhood that still had enough snow to sled.  

On Friday night we went over to Cathey's to play games.  We played Heads up...Here are the boys trying to act things out for one of them to guess.  We played boys vs. girls.

Stretching

?????

Flossing

 

These pictures are from a game called Throw, Throw, Burrito....

...this picture is in between games when Jaxon challenged us to see how long we could hold the dead cockroach pose.

We had fun and the boys played with us all evening.  That night Jaxon came home with us for a sleepover. 

The next day was Christmas Eve.  The boys played video games in the morning and Jason took them to the library and then took Jaxon home.  I made potato casserole for Sunday's dinner and cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.  

Christmas was on a Sunday this year.  We usually go to Jason's dad's house around noon.  Stephanie's dad's birthday is on Christmas and they go there around 5 p.m.  Our normal church time this year was at noon.  So we decided to go to the 9 a.m. church, come home, open presents and then go to Randy's.

 

Here is our pre-church, look in stockings.  Jacob got a shower speaker.  We'll see if it works.  All of us got candy and and orange.  Jacob also opened his gift from Elias.  He got Robux money for his video games.  

From Grandma Safsten.  A note and $20.
He was happy with that.

I got some dish towels from Jason and wash cloths from Jacob. 

Mom gave us some sheets.

Jason got bike cleaning gear

He also got cinnamon bears from his dad and MarySue.  I got Oreos from them.  Jacob received more Robux $. 

This year Jacob received a lot of clothes.
Here he is showing the great amount
of joy he got out of opening more
clothes!  

This was an interesting year for Jacob.  There were no major electronic gifts...he got things he needed and some things he asked for.  He did a good job in working to be pleasant about it.  

At some point the growing up part of Christmas happens.  This was this year for him.  

He did get a new case for his Nintendo 3 DS (wrong size--we need to reorder), a new 3 DS game and an expansion storage for his computer.  So he did OK.  

I was tremendously surprise when I opened a new iPad.  Our other one is 2nd gen and 10 years old.  This was a fun gift!

After opening presents we went to Jason's dad's house and opening gift exchange and had lunch.  Here we are playing the game 1-10.  It was fun and pretty funny!!

The week in between Christmas and New Years...on Monday Jason and Jacob went skiing.  They went up on the bus to see how that worked.  They got there about noon and did a run with Ben and Elias before they went home (they got up there early).  

Tuesday Jacob spent all day working on the extra hard drive he got for Christmas.  We thought the computer had a 2nd expansion slot, but the computer does not so he had to figure out how to get the info off his computer hard drive to transfer to the bigger drive.  

Wednesday night Cathey's came here for a potato bar and to play games.  We played Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza and watched a movie.

Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza
game...making the Narwhal pose before
slapping the pile

Thursday we ended up putting Christmas away.  That night I had my first Activity Day meeting.  I'm working with Karlena Gonzales again and that will be fun.  

Friday Jason and Jacob went skiing again and I went to lunch with Natalie.  It was so fun to see her!

Saturday was New Year's Eve.  We went over to Cathey's for dinner.  Kids did some video games, we watched Loki.  Towards midnight we played charades and at midnight we made a toast to the new year!

Here comes 2023!

November

 Into November...the month of Thanksgiving.  I enjoy Thanksgiving because there is no pressures to make sure you have the right gift, can you find the right gift, is the holiday fun.  That can be a lot of work, but with Thanksgiving, you just need to be thankful and fix a good dinner.  😋 

Olivia, Heidi, Linnea, Sam, Julianna

The first weekend of November we held a bridal shower for Linnea.  She gets married December 17.  I was helping Joy with the food and brought a crockpot of meatballs.  It tipped in the car and I lost all of the teriyaki sauce on my floor mat.  It is a rubber mat, but it slid to the edge and got on the floor carpet.  Tried to get it up the best I could.  Hope the smell doesn't come back in summer! 

Joy, Bryce's mom and sister

It was a nice shower and she received great gifts.

Mom, Joy and Linnea

We went out to eat on a Saturday night.  At the end we were talking about how the bill was over $50.  Jacob started to sit back and say Ahhh, ahhh, hold up his sodas and say ahhh...picked up the bill, looked it over, put it back down in front of Jason, sat back and said, "Ahhh."  It was so funny!

Just after this dinner out on Saturday, Jason got sick on Monday.  He didn't feel well on Tuesday and Wednesday.  He tested and was positive for Covid.  I had begun feeling a little weird on Tuesday, but didn't think much of it.  Then on Wednesday I began to feel sick and tested positive for Covid.  Jacob began on Wednesday and was home Thursday and Friday from school.  We felt achy, runny nose, tired.  I was in bed all day on Thursday, but Friday was up and around a bit.  Luckily by the time I felt sick Jason was getting better.  He had gotten the latest vaccine the Thursday before we all got sick.  I think that saved him from being sick much longer.   

For Thanksgiving (which was the week after we got Covid) Chris and Jen came into town.  It was fun to see them and visit.

Everyone trying to get Tanner to smile

Dinner was good.  It was all of Chris' family (minus Stephanie who was in Costa Rica with Devin's family), Mom and us.  Heidi and her family came over after wards for dessert. 

We finally got some snow.  

Thanksgiving weekend we got our tree up and things looking like they might be ready for Christmas.  Jason left the Monday after Thanksgiving for 2 weeks.  Not Thailand or Singapore, but Houston.  He is talking a class for his new job at Chevron.  They wanted them to stay for the weekend for bonding activities.  😏  

Jacob is working to get caught up after being home with Covid as well as just in general.  2nd quarter is proving to be more work and he is having to learn to adjust to that.  It can be hard some days, but he is perfectly capable.  The biggest struggle is not getting distracted with his computer (YouTube and memes).  😒😬

On to Christmas!