December 2021

December was full of wonderful time with Luke and Sunny! We were heading to Mexico at Christmas, so we wanted to spend as much time as we could with them through December.

Mark continued to make so many delicious ribs.

 Because all of my family was going to be gone at Christmas, we did an early Christmas party, combining Christmas Eve Nativity and Sami Claus.

My uncle Richard, who has always been dramatic King Herod, in our Nativity is no longer able to come to the Ranch. Timmy has volunteered to take his place. He did a great job!

Sami Claus (Swiss Santa which has been a tradition since before I was born because of my grandparents missions in Switzerland) also came. He visits with each grandchild and mentions something they have done well this year and something they need to work on before giving them a stocking full of goodies. Brian had been out in the snow with his cousins, but was able to come in for a quick visit.

Little Zach is just the cutest and I want to soak up as much of him as I can before he grows up. He is the last of the Evans grandkids and so so cute.

Mark brought the ribs! They were the hit of the party! 

I helped do more cleaning and removing of items from my grandma's house before it sold. I got a little teary eyed driving away remembering the countless times growing up hanging out our car windows to wave goodbye to Grandma Joycie.  She ALWAYS either stood at the door, or her windows in the upstairs sunroom to wave goodbye to us. Oh how I love her and will cherish memories in her beautiful and elegant home.

We got a HUGE snowstorm in December. So big the kids got a snow day from school. They made quite the cave in the pile of snow Mark made with the tractor.

The boys and I were asked to do a 45 minutes Christmas program at the retirement home near us. They practiced a lot of Christmas music and Brian read a cool story. They played both cello and piano pieces and we did a bunch of carols for the residents to sing along. It was a great experience. 

We also tried to squeeze as many dinners and fun things in while Luke and Sunny were in town.

They took us bowling which was so fun! 

We had a great Christmas Eve with Mark's family before heading to Mexico. 

Luke was kind enough to take us to the airport at 3:00am on Christmas morning. It will probably be the earliest we ever get up for a Christmas morning present. We had an amazing trip to be detailed in another post. We came home on New Year's Day.