Belated Christmas day smiles

I know that I am almost 3 weeks late posting my Christmas Smiles…. but at least I’m 2 days early doing my weekly Sunday post. In fact, this is my second post this week… Will wonders never cease?

However, there is a reason that I am posting today. I’m taking a group on a cruise. (I know… it is a tough job but someone has to do it!!!) We leave after Church on Sunday. Erin, Patrick and 4 of my grandchildren are part of the group so it is an extra special cruise for us. Erin and family will arrive today so I know this will be my last chance to blog for a while.

I want to document our Christmas Day smiles before it is Valentine’s Day. I guess it is better late than never.

 

As I told you in my last post, my Christmas started early since I was still up at midnight Christmas eve. I helped Mindy with last minute wrapping and just enjoyed the last minutes of Christmas Eve.

I went to bed about 12:30. I sleep with Claire and Grampy stays in EJ’s room. I don’t get a lot of sleep but it is fun being there and the kids are always excited that we are spending the night at their house. That night it wasn’t Claire that kept me awake. I had 2 esophageal spasms during the night. The pain in my neck and jaw is too severe to sleep through. I surely wish the meds they are giving me would stop these attacks…. but I digress… I finally got to sleep in spite of the pain and my excitement that Santa Clause was coming in a few hours.

And sure enough….. Santa came. Claire and EJ snuck out of bed bright and early and went down stairs to find Santa had filled the stockings and left a room full of gifts. They excitedly woke the rest of us so we could join in the merriment.

What fun it is to watch excited children open their gifts.  We also appreciated the thoughtful gifts we received.

I was especially touched that my little Claire bought me a new charm for my Brighton charm bracelet with her own money. Those charms cost $20 each which is a fortune for a little girl to spend. She got me a sun glasses charm so when I look at it I will remember the cruise we are taking together down to sunny Mexico.

Mindy always does Christmas Eve dinner and I do Christmas day brunch. After all the gifts were opened we ate a nice meal and then we just lazed around the house all day in our jammies watching the kids play with their new toys. Since we had 3 iPads and 2 iPods in the room, we sat around playing electronic games together for hours. I wish I’d gotten a picture of us all sitting on the couch with our electronic devices.  I taught EJ how to play Gems with Friends (my favorite game) and before long he was beating me!!!!

Grampy is not an electronic game player, so he spent the day doing his favorite activity.

We played the day away and didn’t even get dressed until late afternoon when we decided to go see the movie,  Les Miserable. (I’ve tried for 20 minutes to get a picture of it to download and put in this post… but nothing worked so use your imagination.)

I loved the movie. The singing was not as good as when we saw the Broadway production but the acting was outstanding.  I really enjoyed the movie even though the emotions of watching it wore me out.

So this is how we spent Christmas day. The only sad part for me was being away from our Utah kids but we feel so blessed to have Mindy and family close by to be with.  My heart is full of sweet memories of Christmas 2012.

Have a good week.  I will share my cruise smiles with you when I get back. 

Hugs, Grammy Lura

 

Belated Christmas Eve Smiles 2012

Hello Blog friends….. I got so busy between Christmas and New Years that I didn’t have time to document my Christmas Smiles.  So, even though I shared my New Year’s smiles with you last week…. I want to go back and document my sweet Christmas eve smiles with you today.  I’ll do Christmas day smiles on my next post.

We had an early Christmas dinner with Mindy, Ernie and the kids on Dec. 23rd .  Austin and Claire stayed  and spent the night at our house. Having them spend the night always makes me smile….especially when Christmas Eve is the next day. I always finish all my Christmas work before the 24th so Christmas Eve can be a day of family, friends and fun.

We started off Dec. 24th with a good breakfast at Denny’s …Smile.. Smile…

…then we spent several hours taking plates of goodies around to friends and Christmas Caroling. John and I are not great singers but we sure had fun.

On  the other hand , Claire sings like an angel. She sang them the solo she had sung in church the day before. Several of them got her to give them a whole concert of her music. She just got a call back from an audition she did for the LA Opera last week. They were amazed as they listened to this little 11 year old singing opera to them in German. She has an amazing voice. Visiting our friends and hearing Claire sing always makes me smile.

After our fun day of caroling and visiting, we headed out to Mindy’s for dinner. It is our tradition to have our big meal on Christmas Eve instead of having it on Christmas day. Mindy and Ernie always make a fabulous meal.  It starts with oyster stew

  The main course is always a delicious Prime Rib Roast with all the trimmings. 

Dessert is always Crème Brulee.

The finest restaurant could not produce a better meal than these two do. What a joy it is to share it with them.

After dinner we gather the family around and read the Christmas story from Luke in the bible.

We thank our Heavenly Father for sending his Son to earth for us. We rejoice as we think of Jesus Christ and celebrate his birth.

Then the family gets into our jammies…. we take pictures…..

The kids get to open one gift from me and Grampy….

Then they decorate and put out cookies for Santa before going to bed.

Without doubt…. Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. I always stay up late and enjoy it up until the very last minute of the day. As the clock strikes midnight and ushers in Christmas day, my heart is full of gratitude and love. 

I know the next morning will be full of fun and merriment…. but for me…nothing beats sitting there that night, looking at the tree, thinking of my family, both near and far away and feeling all the love and thankfulness swelling in my heart.

Christmas eve was special from morning to night. I will always treasure the memories of that special day. I hope that your Christmas eve was wonderful too.

My next post I’ll do my belated Christmas day smiles.  I know that it is January but I’m still enjoying thinking about the Christmas season so I hope you will bear with me.

I hope you have a great week.  Hugs, Lura

Happy New Year 2013

I am wishing all of my blog friends a very Happy New Year.

I hope that 2013 will be good for you in every way.

We were not able to join our sweet family in Utah to celebrate this year but we did the next best thing….

…we got together with some of our dear friends…

.and our little Austin…

…and went to dinner at Hong Kong Restaurant.  This has been their tradition for the last 25 years.  We joined them for the first time last year.

After the dinner we came back to our house …

…where we enjoyed a dessert buffet.

The goodies were yummy and the hot chocolate and hot cider warmed us up.

It has been unusually cold for southern California. Our daughter Mindy’s family even got snow at church this past Sunday. It was in the 40’s yesterday. I enjoy the cool weather during the holidays. Last year it was 85 and didn’t even seem like Christmas.

Austin entertained himself playing Wii games while us old folks visited.

He got some of us to play Uno with him. We decided that whoever won the most games out of 5 would be the Uno champion. Austin won 4 out of the 5 games we played and was crowned the Uno Champion of 2012. We were happy that this little 7 year old wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with us this year.

Since we don’t drink alcohol we toasted in the New Year with eggnog or sparkling cider.  This toast was made at 11p.m….. an hour early…. but it was the same time our family was celebrating in Utah which is on Mountain Standard time. After this toast and New year hugs, our friends went home.

 So, the 3 of us decided to make a quick trip to Time’s Square in NYC. We hoped to see our friend, Buttercup …. but it was too crowded. 

We enjoyed the count down to 2013.

Then the 3 of us toasted in the Real New Year.. Pacific Standard Time.

This morning we continued  our life long tradition of watching the Rose Parade. When our kids were young we used to go to Pasadena and brave the crowds to watch the parade.  Now we watch it on TV from the comfort of our bed.

We welcomed back Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks into our home. They have been announcing the parade for many years.

We were happy to see the Davis High Marching Band in the Parade this year. They are the band in the town where Lynell teaches dance. It wasn’t as exciting as the year Ernie’s Band was in the parade but we were happy for our Kaysville family and friends.

Well …. that is how we’ve brought in this new year of 2013.  As you can see we were full of smiles being with our friends and sweet Austin.  We feel thankful.

May God bless us all in this coming year. I send you my very best wishes and hugs…… Happy New Year…… Grammy Lura