Okay, so I'm beginning this post with this cartoon pic that grandson, Luke, created on his phone while we were waiting for our pizza in Mod in Mesa. I kinda like our brown eyes . . .
But I get ahead of myself.
Before we left for Mesa, we received this wonderful, gift-wrapped surprise on our doorstep. Jan Trinnaman, Jeff's aunt, part-time Sunbrook resident, and fellow Aggie, pieced and quilted this Aggie mini-quilt for us. What an amazing talent she is doing anything artsy and creative! And she is so much fun!
We attended one last Christmas party the night before we left. We are in a rotating dinner group put together of Sunbrook residents where we take turns being host. We enjoyed a delicious German Christmas dinner at Sharon Packer's lovely home. She is a widow, her husband was German, and her house was all decked out in wonderful German Christmas decor everywhere!
Stacy and Tom invited us to stay with them through the Holidays at their wonderful home in Mesa. An added bonus is our son, Ryan, and his family live five minutes away from them and eleven of our grandchildren live there. A few days before we arrived, our cute granddaughter, Anna, our son, Ryan's daughter, was proposed to by Jack on a hike at sunrise in Mesa, and she accepted! They are both BYU students and plan to get married in April.
Londyn, Stacy's daughter, is Anna's cousin and grew up with and went to school with Anna. A night after we arrived in Mesa, Tucker proposed! Their families were waiting secretly in a room near where he proposed and we got to be there and in on the excitement!
Londyn's cute family - only ones missing are sister, Sydney, her husband, Jake, and their boys, Charlie and Henry. They live in Watercolor, Florida.
Tucker's family passed out Martinelli's sparkling cider to toast the happy couple!
We are so happy for both of these darling granddaughters!
Roger's mom, Lois, created an enormous body of handwork throughout her almost 96 years, and, luckily, there were many items to divide out to her grandchildren. We Marco Polo-ed a video showing what we inherited, and then asked our kids what items they each wanted in order of preference, and it came out pretty well and everyone got several great things. So, we brought Ryan and Emily's family those items to them, plus many photos of their family through the years that we found when we did our massive sorting out during Covid. Their kids had so much fun checking out those early photos of Ryan, their parents and the ones of each of them growing up.
Here is the afghan Stacy inherited that Grandma crocheted in her younger days. Stacy is absolutely thrilled to pieces to have it! We didn't take pics of them going through their inherited treasures, but they were tickled!
It is a tradition with Stacy and Tom's family that they go to Benihana's on Christmas Eve. It came about, in a way, because of the final scene in the movie, A Christmas Story. The kids get so excited to do this! One year, they went there additionally another time during the year and it just didn't feel right. They said they won't make that mistake again - it is to just be the special place they go on Christmas Eve. Now Tom's brother, Jimbo, and family and Grit and Sherry go with them, so we made up two large stations. That is Jimbo's family in the background.
Another tradition in their family dates back to Tom's childhood. On Christmas morning, before the kids in Tom's family could go in to the Christmas tree and open their presents, Tom's dad had to drink and finish his glass of orange juice. So, throughout the years of Tom and Stacy's kids growing up, Tom does the same thing. The kids have smartened up now and this is the glass of OJ they poured him.
Can you see how tiny the little glass is?
The presents were lying in wait!
Here are some of the favorite presents . . .
Christmas dinner was bone-in ham, ham sauce, mustard carrots, funeral potatoes, pretzel salad, green salad and Stacy's homemade rolls.
Our Stacy is a very good cook and we all helped!
Grit and Sherry came over for dinner and she brought the delicious mustard carrots.
The day after Christmas was Sunday, and Stacy invited Ryan, Emily and family over for dinner after church. We had pork tenderloin, coconut rice, Jodie's Mandarin orange salad and Emily brought a big yummy green salad.
One of the mornings, Pete brought over this just-baked Nazook Armenian sweet bread that the family had just made that morning. Pete served a Church mission in Armenia. And the tradition in their family is to make baked empanadas on Christmas Eve, which is food both Emily and Ryan enjoyed on their Church missions in Argentina and Chile. They saved some for us, and brought them over, also.
Roger wanted to go golfing with Ryan, Tom and his grandsons. They made two foursomes and golfed at Toka Sticks Golf Club, which used to be part of the old Williams Air Force Base, one afternoon. The Young foursome didn't take pics, but Ryan got some cute ones with Roger and grandsons, Pete and Ben.
Stacy served some of the kids' favorites each night. On this night, we had lemon linguini with your choice of shrimp or chicken. One night, Jake made Butter Chicken, an Indian dish he learned how to make on his Church mission to Canada. It was delicious!
One of the card games we played was Hand and Foot. Guess who won this time! So fun!
On New Year's Eve we were invited to Sham and Jimbo's home for Sham's famous ham sandwiches and many yummy appetizers and goodies. Her parents were visiting them from Texas, Grit and Sherry came and it was a fun evening watching them set off fireworks, visiting and eating.
Stacy made the funnest game for the kids. She wrapped candy, money and gift certificates up in a huge ball of Saran Wrap, then each kid rolled two dice and when he had doubles, he could unwrap the ball until somebody else hit doubles. It was frantic, and, of course, some kids ended up with much bigger piles, but they all shared and traded around and it came out happy!
Happy New Year!
On New Year's Day, Stacy invited Ryan's family for dinner again and we had giant pizzas, Emily's Caesar salad and Stacy baked homemade chocolate chip cookies. She is an amazing hostess! We didn't take pics of the meal, but, after all of the celebrating, here is the scene on the family room couch while we're watching the New Year's games!
Time to head home! What an amazing time we had in Stacy and Tom's Four Seasons! Stacy planned fun things to do every day - movies, shopping, golfing, playing lots of fun games and eating, eating, eating!
Parting is such sweet sorrow!
Celebrating Christmas and New Year's was joyous in the extreme with our loved ones in Mesa!
