Clay's Family Comes to Visit over New Years

We were so excited when we learned that Clay was going to be bringing his family out for skiing over the New Year's weekend.  It really put the frosting on the cake of our holiday experiences.

After arriving on Wednesday the 28th and grabbing a car, they came over to our offices where we treated them to lunch in the Nauvoo Cafe and then gave them a tour of our offices.

Visiting our offices on the 28th floor. 

A beautiful, snowy day.

The poor kids were exhausted having gotten up so early to catch the plane.

They stopped at the famous photo spot in front of the temple on the way to eat.

 Lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Building

 They then traveled on up to Park City for the next few days and nights for skiing lessons.  We all joined them in Park City on Friday night for pizza.

The kids' table for pizza

Saturday evening, we all met at Sushi Ya for, of course, Sushi - yummy food
and then to Heather's for New Year's games and food.

The three oldest cousins - love their smiles!

A whole family of Sushi lovers!

We wondered what Clay and Heather were looking at.

What's the secret!

Hah, they were skyping Adam in Sweden!

Four lovely cousins 

We hope that everyone had as much fun as we did!!!

Christmas in Utah

We haven't spent Christmas in Utah for many, many years, so this was a special one.

After the Christmas Eve dinner at the Joy's and Willi's, mentioned in the previous post,  we then drove on down to Provo and spent Christmas Eve in Bryan and Emily's condo.  They were spending it in their new home which isn't finished, but they really wanted to be there for Christmas.



We got up early and exchanged gifts.  One of the traditions that we took from Rob's family was the idea of putting Christmas gifts in piles on couches and chairs to make it easier to find their gifts.  










I gave Rob a dressy winter cap, a lovely grey cashmere sweater, a Christmas puzzle, and and slippers. He gave me two great Kindle books and a lovely camel colored suede jacket.







Bryan and the kids came over to open their Christmas presents which they had kept at the condo to maintain the surprise.  Grace received a darling chinchilla that she named Izzy, and Clay received a beautiful aquarium - they were both surprised and very pleased.

                                                                                                                                    

We then went to Heather's ward - it is always so lovely to hear and sing Christmas carols, and this year, of course, Christmas was on a Sunday.

Afterwards, we went back to her home, opened gifts and then Bryan and his family joined us for dinner.  They asked Rob to take some family photos of their family which turned out quite well.

We were able to talk with or Skype all of our children as well, so it was just such a great day!                                     

A German Christmas Eve with the Witte's

Joy and Willi invited us to join them for a German Christmas Eve. We were really looking forward to it because we haven't done one before.  And they hadn't done this for a long time with their son Markus and his wife Amanda and daughter Bayleigh. It was such a special evening, and we were so pleased that they had invited us.

Doesn't their house look like something from a movie set?  Their porch was decorated to cute!  We loved the little tree that they had put out.

A sweet nativity.  Their darling tree.  And the lovely little lighted Christmas village - The decorations all made us feel like Christmas!

There is traditional Christmas food in Germany including remoulade, a rolled beef dish, red cabbage and mashed potatoes.  They all tasted so good!

 Here we are sitting around the table after dinner, opening presents.  We pretty much gave food gifts, and then read the story about the Christmas orange and brought a chocolate orange that breaks into pieces to share. After that, Rob read the Christmas Story from Luke

 The biggest surprise that we had though was when Joy and Willi gave us the stunning quilt that he had made for the Utah State Fair and which had taken third place.  They had investigated giving it to This is the Place where they have quilts displayed, but they wanted u to have it instead.  We were in shock, but have enjoyed it so much.  What a dear thing to do!!

Our Anniversary Dinner

With our anniversary on the 18th of December, it has often been squashed between ward Christmas or work parties.  But this year, for our 48th, Rob made it a very special night.

He made reservations at Toscanas in downtown Salt Lake.  It is a pretty upscale Italian restaurant where the food was - Wow!- the food was amazing.

We so enjoyed the multi-course dinner and the time with each other.

We began with a wonderful cheese appetizer plate with different kinds of cheeses to taste along with pears, grapes, and pecans.   

Rob had a favorite - lamb chops...

                                                 and I had gnocchi and spinach ravioli.

For dessert, we had gelato.

And then the waiter brought us hot chocolate with biscotti.  It was fun because he saw our name tags and didn't offer alcohol or coffee.

It was a lovely night - we are so thankful to have had each other for "low these many years" - 48 to be exact! x  We are both so thankful for our marriage and our many memories.  Our 50th is just two years away - amazing!

Christmas with Bert's and Chris' famly

We were surprised to be invited to Bert's and Chris' family Christmas party, but we so pleased that they included us.  It was a festive time, with a scavenger hunt by Bert for fun gifts around the house,










a wonderful dinner prepared by Chris, and then the opening of such thoughtful gifts.  It was so sweet to watch their family all interact, although it made us miss our own grandchildren all over the world.  We don't remember the last time that we were all together for Christmas... We are just posting pictures with captions.