A Very Different Christmas For Us

This year we learned that none of our children would be with us on Christmas and so we decided to tone things down with less decorations and we wouldn't even put up our tree. That all went great and we didn't even miss the tree. (It helped for us to go to Festival of Trees and look at those beautifully decorated trees in lieu of having a tree of our own to look at during the season.)

We had adapted to the idea of being all alone--true empty nesters--on Christmas when we learned two days before the big day that we would, in fact, have one child and her family available to spend the afternoon with us. Since we were on vacation when we got the news and would get home just in time for my family's Christmas Eve party, leaving no time to go grocery shopping, I didn't know exactly what I would be able to pull together for a delectable Christmas dinner for them.

Luckily Mom came to the rescue and invited Dallas, Rebecca, Brooke and Caroline to join Glen and me for Christmas dinner with her and Dad and so that solved the "what's for dinner?" problem I was having.

Here is the Golden family arriving at my parents' home on Christmas Day.



It didn't take Brooke long to find the toys at her great-grandparents' home.


Little Caroline can now sit up by herself.


We have the guy side of the table, plus Brooke, all ready to say the prayer.


And this is what the girls on the other side of the table looked like.


Mom always cooks the most delicious roast beef dinners and after we had our fill and after the guys helped Dad get Mom's new computer running properly, we headed back to our house for a while. Brooke enjoyed moving the gingerbread men over to interact with the nativity set.


Brooke now has an obsession with musical instruments and so she was very happy to see her new gift. She was super glad to see that there was a triangle in the set.


Everyone grabbed an instrument and joined in making a family band which, in turn, resulted in making our little granddaughter extremely happy!


And here's what Christmas Eve looked like for Glen and me. Our Elder Benjamin Thomas decided to do his missionary Christmas phone call when we got to Mom's house for the family party and so we spent most of our time upstairs in Dad's office talking with our son on the phone.


It was great to feel of his upbeat attitude and hear the excitement in his voice about what he's doing and what's been happening in his part of the world. I think the phrase that the people use in West Malaysia is appropriate:

HAPPY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

A "Beary" Good Treat

Every December I am always in a quandary as to what token Christmas treat I am going to give my visiting teaching ladies and Glen's home teaching families. During my recent pondering, I was remembering back to when we took Benjamin to San Francisco and we stopped at the Boudin Sourdough Bakery and watched as lumps of raw bread dough were put together in such an artistic way as to produce a finished, baked bread product such as a crab, an alligator, a turtle, etc.



Inspired by the expert bread bear maker, I tried my hand at it and came up with the following--which I'm sure everyone will agree is a real close second to the professionals.


After some wrapping of seran wrap and sticking a bow and a tag on each one, we were ready to make deliveries to the 9 families on our list.


The good thing about living in Utah is that most people aren't that familiar with the San Francisco novelty bread, so they were very content to accept my amateur token of food art. "Beary" Christmas to all!!

An Apple A Day...

I'm sure Brooke is thinking about how healthy she is going to be once she eats that big, delicious, juicy, red apple.

Since I've missed a couple of weeks of blogging, I just thought I'd get back into the swing of things by posting a cute grandchild photo (with more to come soon, never fear). This is one of my recent favorites of Brooke.

Also, Glen decided I could cutesy up our blog background and that he didn't care if it got a little girlie on him. What a good sport!! As long as he gets his quote of the week in there, I guess the rest doesn't matter much.

Enough Already Kim--I didn't want you to take me this serious!!!

Yesterday morning I received a call from Kimmy and she made absolutely NO SENSE to me. I immediately left work and came home and took Kim to the emergency room.

This was a picture of her in the emergency room.

After 5 hours in the emergency room, they admitted her into the hospital and she spent the night.

Kim had a series of 3 mild strokes (if you can call a stroke mild)and they are keeping her in the hospital for the time being to evaluate her to identify the cause.

She had no other symptoms other than slurred and incoherent speech. The good news is that her speech is getting more normal and she is under good care.

Thanks for all your concerns and prayers.

I had told Kim that with all her medical issues, we had reached the maximum out of pocket expense for our insurance for this year and that meant if she was going to get sick, to get it done before the end of the year. While I appreciate her efforts to do what I ask, ENOUGH ALREADY.

We love you Kimmy and take care of yourself and get better.