Christmas 2009

I can't believe I am wrapping up another year. Although it seems like a lot has happened this yr. and really it has been quite a long year so i am happy that it is coming to an end I guess. Many of those things have been exciting such as the birth of our second girl, the change of the spa name that has brought a ton of success for our business, our oldest child, Bryson, was baptised, two trips to disneyland-one in March-Brielle played her violin and one in Nov. before thanksgiving. a trip to sea world, the beach, the san diego zoo, and the wild animal park, a trip to lake powell, my grandpa's final year, thanksgiving at our house and two christmas miracles. This yr has also been one of our hardest years. the sunday before christmas we took a trip up north with 10 people in our 8 passenger van ( I shouldn't admit it) Maryann, jayni, and samantha came with us to go to our Johnson christmas party at Barry's house. It was nice-grandma Johnson put a lot of work into it. We went up to park city that night-took Jordan and Jemma with us. our kids really wanted to go sledding and were sad we weren't spending christmas up north this yr so we thought it would be fun for them to spend a few days in park city in the snow. We found a fun sledding park and went monday. i was very nervous with Kade and Macie-not knowing what to expect but was very happy with the result. My mouth hurt from smiling the whole time watching out kids have fun-and coopperate :) Macie ended up falling asleep in the stroller and the tubing park had this carousel thing that had baby tubes hooked up to it. I saw one kid asleep on the tube and thought there was no way Kade would sit long enough to fall asleep. In fact I told the worker guy that I would pay him 50 bucks if he got Kade to sleep. It was the funniest thing. Kade got in a tube and really could move and a few minutes later was out! He slept in the tube for 1 1/2 hrs. the thing just keeps going. i was able to take a few tube rides down with the kids and Cam and I traded off watching the two sleeping babies. the park also had little 4 wheelers. the kids loved it! Trey was in heaven! We counted our blessings and didn't even want to chance anything the next day. We went that night to the nutcracker-Adam met us at the highschool and took Kade and trey up to the kelsch's. We took Maryann, Jay and Samantha up with us and Bryson and Brielle stayed at chris and laurie's. We went to the outlets the next morning-One of us would stay in the car while the other's went into a store-it was cold and snowy so we didn't want to mess with the kids. We went to Zupa's-it was yummy! and then we picked up Bryson and Brielle and Jordan and Jemma-so we had 12 people in our van-again I shouldn't announce our stupidity but I just want to remember. we let the kids go swim and watch a few christmas shows and then wed. morning we headed home. We stopped at the kelsch's and dropped off a few gifts and picked up a few. We gave Glen an ipod with some songs, the b of mormon and a few other things downloaded on to it and for Sherrie I put together a book of pictures of all the things she has made all her kids, and grandkids and a charm for a necklace I had given her for mother's day. We bought my mom and dad some slippers-this yr. our brothers and sisters all donated money we would have spent on eachother to a family. My mom put together a priceless gift! I had tears the entire way home reading it. She had put together a book about my grandpa with copies of journal entries, letters, a copy of the talks given at his funeral, songs, poems, a letter from Elder Monson (at the time-thanking him for his hospitality) and a letter from the first presidency that was read at his funeral, and more. she made one for each of us. She gave all the kids each books-she always finds fun books they love. they helped entertain the kids the whole way home :)-the best gift ever-a peaceful drive. Kade does not do well in the car-he did pretty good on the way home and macie slept the entire time. My mom knows how to give very thoughtful gifts. i just recently read an article given by Elder Eyring about giving good gifts. i know giving gifts is hard for some because they don't know what to give and stress about giving the right thing when really the best gifts are the one's that ease one's burdens, one's that require sacrifice and an important component of the good gift is on the end of the receiver-It is important that the receiver recognizes the sacrifice and is gratful! I love to give gifts-it has always been so fun for me to pick stuff out for other people. I love to try and find something they will really appreciate and can use or maybe just want. I loved reading this talk and loved reading that it is not only important to give thoughtfully but being appreciative is also very important. my mom has always been so good at giving the best gifts because they always involve sacrifice. The book is such a treasure but another part of her gift (she didn't know was part of her gift)was getting up early to make us eggs, hashbrowns, oj, whole wheat pancakes and sausage-not even sure of when we would be stopping by-seriously. and even more she sent us with sandwiches, chips, oranges, and candy for our trip home. She always does this. she works tirelessly for all of us. These are the gifts that can't be bought. i am so grateful for her. We got home-took 1/2 an hour had the kids help us unpack and cam even vacumed out the van-we loaded the kids back up drove through a car wash and went to costco to get ready for christmas eve. On christmas eve we took the kids to walmart to buy themselves a gift from grandma and grandpa groen who sent them each 5 dollars. We were walking out of walmart and passed my sister Leanne and Lydia who were going in. Leanne had just gotten off the phone with a Beehive home setting up an appointment to go and sing on christmas eve. I had invited her to eat at out house christmas eve and she invited us to go and sing with them. They were going to enjoy christmas eve dinner at home but we were able to go and sing before our dinner. This was a christmas miracle! there really was no better situation than for us to be singing christmas songs to those in need. We didn't talk much after other than thank you and then we headed home. We had Eric and Amie and their kids and Maryann and Clayton-Jayni and samantha over. it was a nice evening. we played a game and cam read Luke 2 while the kids acted it out. we made a roast and potatoes and jello-amie made rolls and maryann made yummy yams. it was quite nice to be able to put our kids to bed early. this was the first year our family was alone on christmas morning. It was so nice. We had such a fun time. Samantha had a fever that night and maryann brought Jayni over while they took her into the hospital to have her checked and it didn't look too good. she had an x-ray done that showed some damage to her lungs. at one point they thought she had had a seizure. Cam and our neighbor Wade went and gave her a blessing. After the blessing she had another x-ray and this time is showed nothing wrong with her lung-christmas miracle 2. she stayed in the hospital until today-her fever is gone but the doctors did order them to stay in for 2-3 weeks. Christmas day was somewhat relaxing-the kids played with the gifts they got. Santa brought bryson 2 airsoft guns-cam had convinced him that he didn't want him to have them. He brought Brielle a pink nintendo DS, trey-a pocket rocket (motor cycle without training wheels) and Kade a 4 wheeler-it's too big but santa got it for 80 bucks at walmart the day after thanksgiving. he also got the ds the day after for a great deal. Bryson also got an I-pod touch. Cam really wanted to get him this-I wasn't really excited about it but he loves it and has had a lot of fun with it-it is pretty cool. We had fun taking the kids to buy eachother gifts. We paid them for all their chores this month so they could have money to buy stuff. Cam and I didn't buy eachother any gifts this year. Mainly because we didn't care to-neither of us really needed anything and we chose a family in the ward and bought them christmas gifts. Cam did buy me a new ring a couple weeks ago. I love it! I thought forsure I would have buyers remorse because I have a hard time justifying spending money on a ring. My initial ring was $600. i haven't worn it for yrs because I lost one of the bands. i have always just bought cheep fake rings and the one that I was currently wearing kept turning my finger brown so I went and tried some on and got another flat band. It was one of the cheepest there-still too expensive for a ring-and the sales guy kept trying to get me to spend more-even cam wanted me to but then told me to get what I wanted so i got this fun one ct. band of diamonds. it was a great christmas. Oh I almost forgot we also got to talk to Elder Meacham-It is always humbling to talk to a missionary on christmas day-you feel dumb even talking about presents. what they are doing is what christ would want the most for his birthday. this will be one of our new year resolutions-we have the perfect opportunity to share the gospel with our guests every week. The other resolution is inspired by my grandpa-keeping a better journal and better temple attendance. The church has asked to have my grandpa's journals in the church library. he had over 60 journals.