I'll try to remember what happened...
I guess the first 2 weeks of November were uneventful because I don't recall anything. Pie left for China mid-month and stayed until the day before Thanksgiving. It was a field trip of sorts to finish up his MBA program. Better pictures of his trip are on his Facebook account, for some reason I only have this one of him at the Olympic Bird's Nest.
Parent-teacher conferences meant a week of mini-days (not my favorite). We ditched school that last day to get a head start on our vacation! We drove to Utah on Friday for a huge Johnson family Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Grandma Nielson wanted to get the whole family together and spent lots and lots of time in the kitchen getting ready. The dinner had to be held at the church because we wouldn't fit anywhere else. Grandma J was there and even though she was moving kind of slow, she was very alert and talked with everyone. (Pie had the camera in China during this time, so anyone who has pictures, please send me some!) We drove to SoCal from Utah for Thanksgiving Thursday at Karin and Bryan’s and again on Friday at Stewart's. Three Thanksgiving dinners this year- I think that’s a record!
We made it home in time for school to start again and in time for Evan’s 4th birthday. This year he invited cousins and friends to Sky Zone, a wall-to-wall trampoline place. Very fun!
And then December started. Christmas is a busy time of course, and although I was pretty tired at the end of every day, it wasn't much to take pictures of! We did get to go to Drew's first Boy Scout Court of Honor. He received the Fingerprinting and Music merit badges. Way to go, Drew!
Christmas Eve we had our traditional fiesta with our Fardanesh cousins. Tamales, etc for dinner and opening the presents from each other. Always very fun.
Christmas morning we woke up early to see what Santa brought, opened the rest of the presents and then jumped in the car! Off to Grandma and Grandpa Stewart's house in San Bernardino. Katie and Ryan blessed little Odin the next day in good old 2nd ward. We also found out that Grandma J passed away that day, Dec 26th. So glad we made it to Utah at Thanksgiving to see her one last time! Instead of driving home as planned, we drove to Utah again for her funeral. It was very, very cold there that week, and us unprepared in our California clothes! Cousins came to our rescue by lending us plenty of snow gear. Good thing, too, because I’m sure I couldn’t have kept the kids from playing outside in the snow even if they were in shorts and flip flops!
Grandma J’s funeral was very nice, lots of good music and good memories. And a large lunch party at the end. We will all miss her.
So now we are home again. School and work and wrestling and scouts and callings and everything else will keep us busy until the next time we can get together with our extended family!
