December Digest

December is always a busy month.  And I always love it!  The festivities, decorations, and the feeling in the air is my favorite!  All the first graders at Gideon's elementary school gave a great Christmas concert. 

My Gideon is the greatest!  He sang with such enthusiasm (when he remembered) and paid attention well (accept the times he got distracted!).  There is nothing better than to listen to a group of kids sing to get you in the Christmas spirit. 

After the concert, the parents were invited to visit the community room.  During this unit, the kids drew things around the community and had people come in to speak with them about their professions.  They had a nurse, a gardener, and of course, a dentist.  I especially like the drawing of the dentist.  Can't you see the resemblance?

Santa was a special visitor at the concert as well.  I think this was the highlight of the night for all of my boys. 

Although we were going away for Christmas, I still insisted on getting a real Christmas tree.  We headed down to Grand Junction and visited a Christmas tree farm.  We walked around a bit to find the perfect tree.  As we walked around, Bruce watched other people as they dragged their trees to their car.  He thought to himself that all these trees looked so small.  We chopped our tree down and dragged it back to our car. After driving home, we realized one important thing: How do we get the tree through the door?

It turned out that our tree was a monstrosity.  Bruce shoved it through the door with all of his might and even after cutting the trunk and setting it up it was reaching upwards of 9 feet.  Bruce had to tie 550 cord to our curtain rod to keep it from tipping over.  The stand was supposed to be rated for a 2.5 meter tree.  We all had fun decorating it over the next week.  It really helped me get into the Christmas spirit. 

The week before Christmas was a really busy one.  Our furniture finally was repaired and ready to use, so we got to set up our house even more!  Happy Day! We also got summoned in to the Stake President's office and Bruce was asked to be the Elders Quorum president for our new branch in Parachute!  We held a Christmas party for Bruce's staff, and then the following day was my birthday.  I got an electric wok since I like Chinese food so much.  And Chinese food was on the menu.  We got take out and one of the few good restaurants in town.  We scrambled to get out the Christmas cards and do all the final preparations before we left. 

We drove out to Utah on Christmas Eve.  We would have gone the night before, but there was a snow storm through the canyon.  When we did drive through it, we saw abandoned vehicles and overturned trucks.  It must have been a big one! 

Every Christmas Eve all my aunts, uncles and cousins gather at Grandma and Grandpa Cooper's house to celebrate.  We always eat.  When we were little, we used to do the nativity.  We skip that part now that we are older, but we still exchange presents.  It is fun seeing family that we haven't talked with in awhile.  I think this may be the last time we will all be together.  Grandpa isn't doing so good, and I don't think anyone expects him to last another year. 

After the party, Bruce and I drove on up to Pleasant View to spend the night with Bruce's parents.  Joe and Caleb also stayed the night. We wanted to enjoy Christmas with them before they left on their mission.  Santa Claus did find us in Utah and the boys were excited.  Allen woke up at 3:00am to go look at the goods under the tree and finally couldn't stand it any longer and woke up his brothers at 7. 

Gideon's favorite Christmas present was a remote control helicopter.  He played with it for all of 2 days before one of his cousins sat on it and broke it because he left it out.  Allen's favorite present was UNO Attack.  It broke when Allen was trying to load the cards.  They sure don't make them like they used to!

Bruce is modeling his headbands.  His hair is growing so long that it is getting into his eyes when he is trying to work.  I found some extra large bandannas so they would fit his noggin. 

Bruce knew I was missing Germany, so he found a German pyramid to bring me back to the good old days!  This picture is right before I took it out of the box.  It is pretty, promise!

I framed the newspaper article that the Echo did on the opening of H-Dentistry so that Bruce could hang it in his office. 

Bruce did a great job picking out the slippers!

Grandma and Grandpa Hoggan gave all the grand kids journals to go along with a gift card.  We are using the journals to write in every Sunday.  Thanks mom and dad for the beginning of a New Year's resolution!

John and Tricia came up to enjoy Christmas breakfast with all of us and we hung out and played games.  We then packed up to head back down to Salt Lake to open presents with the Barnum side of the family.

I love Christmas and that it draws us back to our families and back to our Savior Jesus Christ.  I suppose that is why it is my favorite holiday.  I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I am a December baby! 

The next day we headed back up north to enjoy listening to Mom and Dad Hoggan's farewell address before their mission.  I am very grateful for the example of faith that they have shown as they have prepared and prayed for miracles to make their mission possible.  All things happen on the Lord's time and it is up to us to keep in touch with God's will to figure out when that is.  We all found out by that Thursday exactly where the Lord wanted them to be:  Berlin, Germany!

I died when I found out!  Bruce's only thought was that since we have already been there, we didn't need to go back!  Wrong! I am so excited to go visit them in the mission field and experience a little bit more of the Germany that I miss so much!  They flew out Jan 14 and have been assigned to serve in the Dresden and Chemnitz CES young adult mission.  They are also excited to be so close to the Freiberg Temple.