Christmas Photos, 2012

Before Christmas 2012, we went on a little trip to sunny Southern California to visit with Damian and Tandy's family (deliver some gifts to them, and pick up some from them) and to attend the annual Christmas Get-Together December 22nd.  This year it was hosted by Aunt Tuny and Uncle Gary in Huntington Beach.   But first we landed at Damian and Tandy's home in Temecula on Friday afternoon.

Just chillin' out in the family room, watching a movie.

 It was a very relaxing time.  However, the day before was NOT relaxing for Tandy, as she had just had her Christmas piano recital.  It would have been very nice to have been there for it, but getting Friday off for Mike required him to get a sub for that day, and her recital was on Thursday.  He didn't want to have to do that for both days.  I was off work, so it was no problem for me.  The people who drove to SoCal were Mike, me, Mike's mom, Nick and Kaylee (who drove down to Cedar late on Thursday night after work).  Eric opted to stay home and headed north to see lights on Temple Square, visit with friends AND attend a wedding.  He may have blogged about that trip on his space.  Or not.

I just had to take pictures of all of Tandy's gorgeous Christmas decos. Her whole home is lovely, and it really shines at Christmas-time!  This room was emptied the day before of all but the piano and tree (and wall decor, of course!).  She filled it with (rented) folding chairs and people for the recital, and fed them all lovely treats after!! We got to eat a lot of the lovely treats over the next three days.  MMMMmmm, Christmas goodies!!

We mostly just saw Damian coming and going from his night shift at the hospital. His family seldom gets to see him, so we felt lucky to steal a few minute here and there on our trip. He was either off to work, or coming home to go to sleep.

Nick and Braeden are playing a Star Wars Wii game.  I thought that it was clever of Braeden to place himself on a stool to keep himself contained.  I'm sure it works quite well.  I've seen Wii-motes go flying from other's hands (and bop others on the bean, too!), so  'self-containment' of such an exuberant one is a great idea in my book.

They played other Wii games, as well.  And watched movies.

The beginning of the gathering at Aunt Tuny's house.  Ken Sorensen became ill with the flu or something, but Jeri came and brought Jean and Kenny K with her.  

There was lots of food and fun.  LOTS of picture-taking!

Lots of chatting and visiting.  Lots of kids running up and down and playing on the stairs.

Lots of smiles and laughter.  Sandi and Dave came from Colorado, but not of the kids were able to make it. Suz's family was complete, however.

Jean and Aunt Maureen.

Our happy Hostess!  Thanks, Aunt Tuny, for a fun time!!

Aunt Tuny's happy kitchen helpers. Sandi, Suz.

Christi and Jill with Haley, the Sumida's dog.  I wondered why they brought her, and it was at Aunt Tuny's request. Aunt Tuny's dog, Teddy, and Haley get along well and Aunt Tuny thought that by having calm Haley around it would calm Teddy.  No such thing.  We seldom saw Teddy as he was sequestered away in an upstairs bedroom away from the crowds.  It was better that way for everyone.  Jill LOVES animals!!

I'm trying desperately to jump into the timed photo, but failed. I about smashed poor Steve. Why didn't I just sit down in front of the coffee table, one might ask? There are other, better, photos of the group that Tandy took.  I just can find it at the moment.

Getting ready for a rousing game of Bologna.

Back to Damian and Tandy's house.  He didn't attend the get together since he had to work that night.  Below is Damian and Lexi on Sunday morning.

Lexi and Braeden.  I thought it was cute that Braeden was trying to help me with the Sunday Crossword puzzle.

Unfortunately, those answers were for a previous puzzle, not this one . Darn!

Lexi made this lovely "gingerbread" creation!  It looks good enough to eat!

Hmmm. I'm sensing a bit of a theme here.  This isn't the ONLY picture of Mike snoozing on the couch that I have from this trip.  Well, it IS vacation time and he DOES do nearly all the driving, so we can cut him some slack once in a while.

After church on Sunday.  The girls are wearing their pretty new Christmas dresses, and Braeden is looking very spiffy, too.  Nice tie!!  GREAT smiles, everyone :)  :-)    :-D

 Below are some pictures of all the lovely decorations around the living and family room.  [Tandy, will you help me decorate in my house?  You did the mantle in my living room, and now I need some desperate help in the basement.  Some furniture pieces are changing, some wall decor is changing...pretty please?]

Just chatting in the kitchen after church.  Kaylee,  Ella, Tandy.

There's lots of great decos OUTside their house, too.  We drove over to Bainbridge Court to see the light display this evening. Nick and Kaylee's blog has a video on it.  I took some, but they are not as good and I'm not very good at successfully posting videos on my blog.  

 BACK HOME TO CEDAR CITY ON CHRISTMAS EVE

We left California on Monday morning, and drove home to Cedar. Brrrr, it was cold when we got here! It'd snowed. There was rain in SoCal, but sunny the rest of the way until we hit Southern Utah, then rain and snow again.  Like I said, Brrrr. Nick and Kaylee spent Christmas Eve with us.  The photo above is Christmas morning breakfast.

 And then gifts.  Mike got a tool box for the garage to help him be more organized. I think it's helping.  My car is parked in the carport as I type.  :-)  This is just the top part of the three sections of the rolling tool chest.

 Then over to Grandma Liebhardt's house to open more presents!

Lots more picture-taking going on here, too.

Gail and Seth's family received a really big box from David and Laura this year. It was delivered to our house, and they just left it there until Christmas. We hauled it over to Grandma's house for them on Christmas morning.  None of us knew that it was the "12 Days of Tex-mas!" from Laura and Dave!  They could have been opening them up all along, but no one had opened the box.  I liked it better this way (selfishly) because then I got to see all the stuff and see them open them all .  They took turns and it was a lot of stuff and a whole lot of fun!!  Seth is modeling one of the shirts.  I remember so well when Laura did this for us when we lived in Hawaii oh-so-many-years-ago and the kids were small.  I wore my Texas Longhorns shirt for years.  Decades. Literally.  And we have many of the items from that special Christmas, still.  The "Lone Star Texas Pine Tree," and the ornaments for the tree...what fun memories.