Christmas 2009

This was one of the best Christmases of my life. We decided to surprise my family in California. It was kind of hard to keep the secret, and I was giddy when Sal told me I could tell someone. So I called Cari because Beth can't keep a secret (sorry Beth). Well, I HAD to call Cari because there was a possibility the secret had been breached on Facebook, but I was able to thwart it.

So we left early on Christmas Eve with me scheming all the way down there on how we would pull off this surprise. This is a picture of the sun rising over the mountains and clouds and the white streak below is a valley buried in fog. It was beautiful.

This is Kaydee going through the car wash in Las Vegas. She doesn't like the noise. But the van was looking bad with all the dirt and salt all over it.

Just as we were about to cross over the state line into California, my mom called. She said she was going to call on Christmas and talk to each of the kids. I'm so glad she didn't ask to talk to them then, they would have spilled the beans. Little did she know, we were only a few hundred miles away.

We arrived at our nice little motel tired and grumpy when the call came a few minutes later from my sister. It was time to go to Gramma's. We still hadn't discussed how we were going to surprise them, all I knew was that I didn't want the kids going in before me so I could see the expression on their faces. Sal dropped me off on the corner, and I traipsed through the yard, motioned to the Bro-in-law to be quiet, and walked in the front door. What a surprise it was. It was great! But sadly, dad wasn't there, he was still in the hospital. We did our Christmas walk, went back to mom and dad's and read the story and visited. The girls can't resist Uncle Sal (and Kaydee has to make sure she claims her man).

On Christmas day, I went to see dad at the hospital. When I had called him the night before and told him where we were, he was speechless. He was happy to see me, and mom and Beth showed up too. After visiting dad, we drove out to Oxnard to see Patti's (Sal's mom) new house. She lives close to the beach in a nice little community. I really like it. We walked to the beach, let the kids play in the water a little bit, and then went to get ready to head on over to Sal's sister's. We had Christmas dinner with Patti, Danette and Mike, Lauren and Josh, and Mike's parents. It was a wonderful dinner, and we had a great time visiting. The kids were really tired when we left, and I think poor Kaydee was confused. She couldn't figure out what she was doing to provoke the dogs. They aren't too fond of kids, and let us know from time to time. I think the kids did pretty good about the dogs compared to the last time we were around them. And I think that I would scream too if I was 3 and  2 dogs came barking at me from both sides.

On Saturday, the kids and I went up to Aunt Lori's cabin in Lake Arrowhead. Hanging out with family is always fun. Then Lena got to spend the night with McKayla, and went to church with them on Sunday. Sal and the kids and I went to my parent's ward. It was quite a full sacrament with a missionary homecoming. Made me feel old. I can remember when this missionary was born. Then after church and a nap for Kaydee, we went to mom and dad's for Sunday dinner.

We left for home on Monday morning. We stopped in Baker for lunch at Bob's Big Boy so Sal could reminisce on his days working there. And goof off with the girls.

Closer to home, we stopped at Gramma Berta's for dinner and more visiting. The kids love the gifts they got from Gramma and Grampa. We returned home late that night. The next day it snowed. Thank you snow for waiting until after we got home to make the roads bad.