Christmas blog

Well, here we are. Another year has come up and smacked us in the face.

I guess I will recap the last few months to get everyone up to date:

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Elaine, Skip, Chris, Michele, Nia, Jesse, Andrew, Amy, Melissa & Tanner

In October we loaded up in the Cherokee 6 with Kara, Nate and Michelle and flew over to Seattle to attend Isabella Bigelow's blessing. It was a near perfect trip-good weather, etc.- and Darrel did a great job with the blessing. On Saturday we drove up the canyon aways and hiked up to Big 4 ice caves. Really cool. There is this big glacier back up against a huge rock wall. In the summer the bottom melts and forms a cave and the warm wind blowing up the canyon makes it bigger. It's a huge hole-20 feet high-that you could walk into, except for the fact that it has been known to collapse and crush people now and then. We stayed out.

Darrel and Latassa and the girls came here for Thanksgiving. John came up from Provo. Nate and Michele and Kara and Brandon attended also, along with John's old buddy Cory and his wife Melanie, and their baby, Bella. Elaine deligated all of the supporting dishes out to the kids and preceded to create a masterpiece of a turkey. We ate till we passed out.

Today we got back from spending the weekend with Jesse and Michele up in Moscow. We had Christmas with all the Cederquist kids here in Idaho. Amy and Melissa came down from Bonners. Carla, Jimmy, Shania, Chris and Adrianna came down from Post Falls. And of course, Keri and her guy CJ from right there in Moscow. We had just a fine time. Andrew and Tanner were a little on the sick side (croup, it turns out) but they soldiered on. I'm sure having Puck there helped keep their minds off things. We played Whacky 6 until the casualty count got out of hand and we had to quit. We enjoyed an amazing display of nativity sets at the Stake Center in Moscow. There must have been 500 nativities on display. They had one room set up for children with child friendly nativities and activities. It was very cozy with a fireplace, piano, puppet stage, and a lot of ambiance. Another room was set up as a "Live Nativity" with the manger scene and costumes. A photographer was on hand to snap a picture of each family group. Jesse was on duty, but we twisted his arm a little and he joined us for a photo session. The little boys were adorable little lambs.

We are so very thankful for each one of our children and grandchildren. Each one is so dear to us. Skip is now the Family History Consultant and is teaching the class in our ward. We are finally making some progress finding some of Skip's family. We are planning to go to a Family Reunion in Michigan at his sister's house this summer. Skip has contacted some of his cousins for family history information and has received some great information already.

Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Very Christmas and a Preposterous New Year