Thursday, December 27, 2007

Christmas with the Family...

After returning to Utah from my last gig of the year in Houston - late Wednesday night... I had Thursday morning to get a bit of backlogged work completed. Then lunch with Joe and Brent at a small Hot-Dog shack by BYU called 'Jdawgs' - Ok... it was a great hot dog - I think Jill even could have eaten one.Then up to Salt Lake City in a massive snow storm to spend the evening with the family - Dinner at California Pizza Kitchen in the Gateway, swimming, and then a movie at Embassy Suites - Jill said it was the best night's sleep she's had in a while - Karrissa thought she could hear me snoring from the room next door... see note above on Jill's comments... ;-)After a hearty Embassy Suites breakfast we headed over to the Gateway - Hansen Planetarium, shopping, etc. before getting a bite to eat and heading home to watch Alysha's dance at the Timpanogos High School basketball games. We got to see my cousin Gerry Garrett who was down watching his boy Nick pay against our team.Saturday was a pancake breakfast - errands - taking the white van over to cousin Jake to drive to Vegas followed by the annual Parsons' Family attendance at the Hale Center's 'A Christmas Story' - I really like the story, and the guy who plays Scrooge is very good. But I could do with less 'musical' and more acting. Then we had Mom & Dad up for the BYU Football bowl game. (The Cougars didn't do too well - but 'didn't loose' in the last second when they blocked the UCLA field goal attempt)
Jill and I went out to Aunt Patty's in Grantsville on Sunday after church to visit with Chad and Cindy and their kids who came down for Christmas. I helped Duane with his old laptop/new laptop to transfer his stuff to the new system.

Christmas Eve was spent running errands and getting the hou
se all ready for company, then over to my sister Janet's house for dinner and the Christmas Eve program. A good time was had by all! - I then did the traditional Christmas Eve Cinnamon Roll baking. This year I followed a recipe from Ryan and used the Breadmaker machine to prepare the dough. They turned out GREAT! I'm going to do that from now on. (that and remember to bake them a bit longer)

My 'Girls' - making a Gingerbread House together. (yes Karrissa is 22 weeks along)

Christmas Morning was also great fun. McKinley got a Fischer Price Kitchen and enjoyed playing with it (not so much with all the boxes and other gifts) - and was a 'hoot' to watch dance to the music her kitchen blender makes. We had so many gifts to open we barely completed them all before all the cousins and family came over for Christmas Breakfast. Jill made her famous Egg Casseroles - I know that name doesn't do justice to how well these taste! Mom brought the 'fruit compote' and some of the cousins 'ponied up' and actually ate the fruit before getting cinnamon rolls!

Jill didn't have to work as scheduled so we had a restful afternoon and then off to the traditional Christmas Day movie - this year it was 'National Treasure - book of secrets' - a sequel a previous family movie day - not bad... totally entertaining.
Whew... not bad for a week home - busy - but enjoyable.

Now it's time to get back to work and catch up on the projects there.


3 comments:

Richard B said...

Enjoyed your blog update with pictures and all. Glad we were a part of the celebration with the family. Thanks Keith for all you do for everyone and especially for a great Christmas gift. Keep on keeping.

Gram said...

This is a test comment from Grams.

Gram said...

You are so proficient with the pictures and everything. I know I'm just the Mom but you do amaze me with all your knowledge. You did as a child and you still do now. It was a great Christmas this year. Lots of fun activities and I'm happy to see you try to carry on what I started and then stopped - that of going to a hotel and enjoying the family together. You are a good Dad!