A Blakey Christmas

Last summer Roger and I volunteered to take care of our grandson, Blake, over Christmastime, 

while his family traveled to big brother Josh's mission in Hong Kong. 

Josh has been home from it for a while, but this was the best time to go to Hong Kong 

for the weather and he is on Christmas break from BYU.

While already there, they planned to also travel to interior China - 

to Shanghai, Xian to see the terra cotta warriors, Beijing and to the Great Wall. 

Blake gets along best when his parents travel if he is in his own bed at night and he knows us well.

And we happened to know two words that are Blakey's Achilles heel that can solve almost any problem for Blake - French fries and ketchup!

We arrived the evening of December 20 and Rick's family flew out on the 21st. 

Jodie is awesome when we take care of Blake. She makes little piles of which clothes he can wear every day, 

she writes out a detailed itinerary, stocks up on his (and ours) favorite foods and she arranges 

for someone to take him for a while each day. 

She has a wonderful sister and two great sister-in-laws who each take a turn or two having him over to play 

with the cousins and also a cute neighbor girl, whom he loves,

 comes and gets him and plays with him at her house.

So Roger had some business in Ogden on the 22nd and we dropped Blake off at Jennie's, who lives in Pleasant View, then went for a late lunch to Maddox with Grandma and Chyrrl and Glynn.

Christmas Eve, the Stratfords, for the first time, instead of at Grandma's, 

reserved the church for the Christmas party. 

It has always been a casual affair where everyone brings their favorite pizza, appetizers and a salad, 

but it had gotten bursting at the seams in Grandma's house.

I made wedge salads with homemade bleu cheese and balsamic dressings

After we ate, we had a live Nativity  from Saint Luke 2 with Lois's great-grandkids.

Blakey got to be a shepherd. He loved it!

Then we filed into the Cultural Hall and Santa came. 

First up, Grandma Great!

 Blakey was excited to go up and sit on Santa's lap. 

He has been reading about him and singing songs about him all month and he was ready!

When Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said, " Bubble machine!"

He was trying to figure out what treat Santa had given him!

After each kid had sat on Santa's lap, they all went up front for a pic with him, 

and Blake got to sit on his lap again!

We went over to Grandma's afterwards for her to give her children their presents 

and we took a pic with her in front of her beautiful tree.

Christmas morning we took a lot of video so Rick and Jodie could see Blake opening his presents.

Christmas morning Blake looks over the pile of presents.

He loved tearing open the packages.

Guess what this is! The Bubble Machine!

Mindy and Jeff invited us for Christmas Brunch at their home in Alpine. 

Mindy set a lovely table and they have the custom to have English crackers at their brunch every year.

Jeff makes delicious German pancakes every year and Mindy made that wonderful golden syrup.

Blake and I pulled and pulled on our cracker!

Finally, with a little help from Grandpa, it popped open!

It had a crown and a necklace inside.

It was so fun to have Fiona, Charlie, Addie and Jack show us what Santa brought them. 

Fi got two Princess dresses and she changed into both of them and one of Addie's 

that she is not quite grown into while we were there!

Fi got a vanity set and she really fixed me up - full service salon!

She insisted that I wear her crown and hold the sceptre.

Addie sang several cute Christmas songs for us that she had sung in her program at school. 

She is a really good singer!

 Okay, here is pretty much where the fun ended for Blakey for 3 or 4 days (and, I might add, for us!). 

The day after Christmas, he came down with the stomach flu.

I won't go into detail, 

but I will say that Roger makes an amazing stooping and bending one-man clean-up crew 

and Blakey had many tubbies and lots and lots of music sung to him!

We were able to make it to Roger's cronnies' party at Jerry's ski lodge in Deer Valley, 

thanks to a pre-arranged cute babysitter. It was so fun to see these great people again! 

They always treat me as if I were in Weber's Class of '62 with them!

And our last big treat was to meet our dear friend, Karleen for lunch at Market Street Grill in SLC. 

Her car was t-boned in an accident this last summer and she has recovered remarkably well, 

though she is still to have two more surgeries on her injured eye. 

As I write this, catching up on my blog, Rick, Jodie and kids are expected home tomorrow afternoon 

and we will kiss our sweet Blakey and head back to St. George, leaving behind very frigid temperatures. 

It has been an unusual Christmas, an endearing and sweet one and very, very memorable!