New Jammies 2007

View Album

Get your own

I think my most favorite part of Christmas is the Christmas Jammie exchange with cousins. I could easily do away with all the other traditions - well, maybe not Chinese Food, but the Jammie exchange is by far the best. I love to see the carefully selected jammies, and I love to see all the grandkids in their Christmas Jammies when I visit them throughout the year, and even handed down to younger siblings in later years. This year Ada insisted on wearing her Christmas Jammies several nights in a row. We had to fish them out of the dirty clothes basket one night, and wash them the next day for her to wear again. It is a small gesture which I hope will help keep the cousins close.

Christmas Eve 2007

View Album

Get your own

Christmas Eve is not complete without a reinactment of the Nativity. It is always special when we have a new baby as a stand-in for baby Jesus. At dad's request, each family had to contribute a presentation. The Runyan's shared music with Kendall at the piano and Sam on cello. The Tripps shared a reinactment of Samuel the Lamanite foretelling the birth of our Savior. The Runyan's second floor made a nice setting for Samuel on the wall. Grandpa had a secret weapon and surprised Zeph with Nerf arrows. The Lyons shared a song, but had a hard time getting all their boys to cooperate at one time. I shared a reading of Micah's famous "T'was the night before Christmas Ball" poem and we won't mention what Grandpa shared. Every year brings something new and special. Our Christmas Eves are cherished moments.

Gingerbread Men Christmas Eve 2007

View Album

Get your own

Thanks to Kendall, the grandkids had a wonderful time creating their own Gingerbread Men. Zeph is not pictured, as he was competing with Grandpa on the Wii. What wonderful grandkids we have. We sure missed those who could not be with us.

We spent a couple hours this afternoon navigating our way through Picasa and we are still trying to figure things out. I thought we would be able to click on each photo in the collage, but it doesn't seem to work that way. Next we are going to try to figure out how to do a slide show. I know we are dorks about this - but not as bad as we could be. We took Grandma and Grandpa out to lunch today and talked about our blog, but first we had to explain what a blog was. I asked Grandpa what he thought a firewall was, and he said it was a structural thing. All this computer stuff is mind boggling for them. Grandpa was quite disturbed afterward. He said he felt stupid. We reassured him he wasn't, but just on the wrong end of the computer age. It makes me wonder what will be cutting edge when we are their age - if we make it that far.

Pineapple Express

We got hit by a major storm system with high winds and lots of rain. It was kind of frightening for a short time, but all is good now. There was a ton of power outtages in the north state. We are finally back on, after being without power for about 18 hours. Comcast service has been out since mid-morning Fri. I actually like not hearing the phone ring, and knew if it was my cell ringing, it was people I actually wanted to talk to.
Here are some photos of the damage in our neighborhood. The city came out quickly to cut up and chip the tree laying across the road. The photo of our driveway shows the pile of debris I cleared from our walkways. There are still lots of branches on our roof we need get off.