Happy New Year!

I’ve neglected the blog – and yet I’m selfishly checking everyone else’s blogs ALL the TIME hoping they have posted again. I am resolved to do better.

Family update? We all had a wonderful time at Christmas – though it seemed kindof hectic. Tom made a really delicious gourmet meal for Christmas Eve: a course meal that began with roasted fruit kabobs, pork green chili, spinach and pomegranate salad with feta cheese, beef tenderloin with Dijon mustard sauce served with asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes, and for desert a delicious chocolate mousse with chocolate mint leaves and raspberries. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a single picture of the meal. Why is that?? It was definitely worth some beautiful “foodie” pictures. You’ll just have to imagine! Every year Tom says he’s never doing this again, but then everyone raves about the meal and he starts planning how he can top it for next year – he should have been a chef.

Afterwards we enjoyed Christmas carols and the traditional opening of the pajamas (we did get pictures of that) and sent everyone on their way to “dream of sugarplums” in their own beds.

Check out the scary "devil" eyes!

We continued our tradition of opening Santa presents, taking a break for breakfast and a movie, and then coming back for family gifts afterwards.  It made for a nice day.  Some of the highlights:  Haley received a new bike, Andrew got a skateboard, Spencer got a new X-Box, and the family got a new flat screen t.v. for the family room.  Our old t.v. was purchased in 1998 in response to having our house broken into and our original t.v. stolen.  The Jazz were in the playoffs with the Bulls and Tom couldn’t go even one day without a t.v. so we went shopping.  The police found our original t.v. the next week in a pawn shop.  Still, we’ve gotten a lot of use out of that old Sony.  Oh and Tom got a new set of drivers and a drill press and I got a Kindle – which was a complete surprise and which I am really liking.  I’m planning a whole post about my Kindle (but don’t hold your breath!).  We went and saw “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”.  Spencer was the dissenting voice – he didn’t really like it much, but on the opposite side, Andrew thought it was better than the book!

Christmas Day evening, Tom’s nephew and family came into town and spent Sunday with us.  The kids were in seventh heaven playing with their four girls and hopefully Brent and Bethany enjoyed their stay.  They were heading to Kansas City to spend some time with Brent’s sister, Mari and her family.  Mari and Martin have had a rough year.  Their daughter, Kate (2) was diagnosed with neuroblastoma this past spring and they have spent the year in and out of the hospital doing chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, bone marrow transplant …  Kate still has some additional therapy to go through starting this next week.  I’m sure they enjoyed having a visit from family.

We had another lame New Year’s Eve celebration (translation:  no celebration).  Liz, Tom’s niece, stopped in to spend the weekend with us on her way from Kansas City to Utah (she’s Mari’s sister and has been living with them to help out with Mari’s kids).  It was great to have her with us to ring in the new year.  We did a puzzle and ate some food and made it to midnight, after which we fell into bed.

Now everyone has been back at school for a week and we’re getting back into the swing of things.  I’ve got some major projects in mind to get my house back into shape (I’ve been just shoving things wherever for the past couple of months) and to finish up the painting I started back in Oct.  We discovered we’re going to have to buy a new dishwasher (bummer) and we are still thinking about a mini-van …  but shopping?  I think I’ve had enough for awhile so we might be hand-washing dishes for the foreseeable future.

Spencer says I’ve “updated” enough.  I’ll try to post again in a few days … I keep thinking of things I want to say, but laying in bed with a book is so much easier than writing!!

2 thoughts on “Happy New Year!

    • Author gravatar

      great “updates” johanna. even if spencer wanted you off the computer 🙂 i love reading your blog – i’m excited to hear you are resolving to do better. can you send some of that resolve my way? 🙂 are you still thinking of utah in february???

      • Author gravatar

        Erin, you are a MUCH better blogger than I am. I’m trying to follow your example (although, without as many pictures). I am still thinking of Utah in February. In fact, can I come and stay with you for a few days? I’d like to visit some of my friends in the north part of Utah, but it won’t happen if I have to travel up from Monroe. If I come straight to your place I might actually make a few visits. But if it won’t work, that’s o.k. too. I have to figure out when (and I’m thinking I want to stay 10 days or so).

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