Our Adventure in Farmington!

Brian and Chelsea were planning on coming to Gallup first on Christmas afternoon, and changed it to a couple of days later because they were having friends come through Farmington to stay with them.  It turned out that their friends decided to go through later on in the week, but by the time Brian and Chelsea were ready to come to Gallup, Eli had a bad cold, and Susan had a pukey stomach bug.  By the time the sickies weren't sick anymore, the big snows and freezing temperatures came.  So we didn't get to see them at all during the holidays.

So the dad had a great idea that we could go to Farmington this weekend, take all the Christmas gifts, and watch the boys while Brian and Chelsea went to Monticello to do an endowment session in the temple there.  And that's just what we did!

As soon as I got home from school on Friday, we loaded up the sleigh and headed to Farmington.

We got this cute little tent at IKEA for Peter for Christmas!

Some of the pictures I took, and some, Chelea took.  If it's a really good picture, she took it.

 

We had whole-wheat pancake mix wrapped up in David decorated paper.  It's now dound its way into our game!

On Saturday morning, Brian and Chelsea took off for Monticello.  We took off on a little adventure of our own!

I went over to the United Blood Services place, which is really close to Brian's and Chelsea's house, to donate blood.  While I was doing that, the grandad and the grandboys went and got a few things that we needed from Smith's, which was right across the street.  I bribed the boys, that if they were good helpers for Grandad, I would share my snacks with them when they came back to get me.  As you can see, they have their snacks.  Clearly they were good helpers!

David loves doing puzzles.  He's pretty doggone good at it!

The grandad gave haircuts to the boys.  I put Pete the Cat on my Kindle, and David hardly moved a muscle.

This one, on the other hand, needed Grandma to hold him the entire time.  That's why the only pictures are AFTER, and not during the haircut.

Amy and Cody got Superhero cookie cutters for their family.  David was one excited boy!

Brian and Chelsea at the temple in Monticello

We took stuff with us to Farmington to make Curry Chicken Pot Pie to celebrate National Curry Day.  As it turns out, Brian and Chelsea made Chicken Divan (which has curry in it) for us to eat for lunch.  We decided to eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and then we all had a delicious Chickan Divan dinner when they got home.  (We left the stuff for the pot pie there so they could hae tasty, delicious pot pie some other time.)

It was great to finally get to see them, since clearly seeing them during the holiday turned out to be a bust!  We love our family!

We Went to the Snowflake Temple!

We had hoped we could go see Brian and Chelsea this weekend, but they had friends coming to stay the night with them, so we decided to go to the temple in Snowflake instead.  It was a great session.  Afterwards, we met Lynn and Diane and went out to lunch with them.  I forgot to take pictures of them, darn it.

Ring in the New Year!

We always do a puzzle during the holidahys.  Because of snow and sickies, we wound up doing THREE this year.

Boy, did we ever have a wild and crazy New Year celebration around here!  I had a cold, and wasn't feeling all that well.  Dad just got over one, and Susan was finally over her Stomach Flu.  It was fun, though.

Our Christmas Puzzle!  Cody and Amy did a lot of it before they left!

Our New Year's Eve Puzzle!

It's Midnight!  Happy New Year!  (We finished the puzzle about 20 minutes later.)

We went to see Mary Poppins Returns.  Loved it.  Then we went home and watched Mary Poppins.  Loved it.  Then we watched Saving Mr. Banks.  Loved it.

We stopped by Burger King for $1 Chicken Nuggets!

We ate lunch at Alicia's on Jan. 2.  The dad had to work, so we met him there at lunch time.  (I had a gift certificate from school!)

Amy sent me this picture from Cody's folks' house!

This is what it reminded me of!

The Cheese Ball House Competition!

We held our second annual Cheese Ball House Competition!  The dad and Eli slept through the making of the houses, so they were our judges!   These are the contestants and their entries:

Cody

Amy

Susan

The Mom/Grandma

These are the judges.  I put in lots of pictures of them because they are so cute!

They are happy with their decision!

First place - Cody.  Second Place - Susan.  Tied for third place - Amy and the Mom/Grandma

Christmas Time is Here! Happiness and Cheer!"

We were originally going to be able to see all our children and grandchildren during the holidays this year, but alas, you know what they say about the best laid plans.  We did see half of our children, and one of our grandchildren, so it was still a good Christmas break for us!

"Grandma, we are on our way to your house!"

Stopping for a rest break in Holbrook!

Grandma is getting more excited by the minute to see her grandboy!

Eli is helping Grandma to wrap presents!

He is a big help! 

Carol and Mark came over for Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day!  We had a wonderful day with them!

Opening presents!

Poor little guy had his first bad cold while he was here, and he was pretty stuffed-up.  You can kind of see it in his face here.  He was exhausted from getting his sinuses sucked out over and over because he had a nose full of booggies.

Ready to play the Wrapping Paper Game!

Mark got Carol and I Christmas glasses!

Eli was not amused.

Our Christmas Eve dinner of Black Forest Ham, potato salad, bean salad and rolls.

"Santa came!"

"Look!  He ate his cookies and drank his Metamucil!"

Eli got toothpaste and a toothbrush in his stocking!

Lots of fruit!

I'm glad Susan had a good day on Christmas!  The next day, she spent most of the day puking into the toilet bowl, and was sickish for the next two days.

An elephant from Thailand!

The grandad had a bolo tie and a pin made for Amy and Cody.  The coin company he used for Brian and Chelsea, and Steven and Angela, for their bolo ties and necklaces was no longer in business, so he had these made from bumblebee jaspar and had pins of the Phoenix Temple put on them.

Helping Grandad!

We're not getting old!

This is my Christmas gift this year.  It's a treadmill.  I like it a lot, especially now that Heather's gone and I'm just not motivated to go exercise by myself.  I can watch movies while I walk!

Cody got Amy some pens and paper for lettering!

This little guy just plain felt rotton.  Sad Grandma.

This year I had everyone make their own blog books.  Yay!  It has always been a huge stress for me.  Amy brought hers so I could see it!  I love it!

We went on a walk while the Grandad took a nap.  He had a cold, too, and wasn't feeling well.  We had a house full of sickies!  (I caught the cold a few days later.  Boo.)

This is the first year that our Christmas Cactus has bloomed at Christmas time!  Usually it blooms at Easter and Halloween!

After Christmas, we had a big snow!

Blueberry syrup from Brian and Chelsea on my pancakes!

Eli had a cute little love-affair with Susan!  Even when they were both sick, when they looked at each other, Eli would just grin and grin!  So would Susan!

This is a few days later when Susan was feeling better, and was probably not apt to give the crud to Eli!

I was sad we weren't able to Brian, Chelsea, David and Peter during the holidays.  Sickness and weather blew that for us.  I was also sad we weren't able to go see Steve, Angela, Micah and Erica either.  I want to meet that little one!  The change in the County Commission, and the weather kept that from happening as well.