Gingerbread Houses 2020

On the Sunday before Christmas Marilyn and I have a tradition of making gingerbread houses with Sean and Tashena so that is what we did last night.  This is so much fun because we always have a few mishaps and we usually eat more candy than we put on our houses!

My house sort of turned into a Peppermint Palace.

Tashena meticulously piped all of the snowflakes on her house and I think it turned out so beautiful.

Sean just does his own thing and I love it!

I love the snow on Marilyn's house.

Our Gingerbread Village!

I love how they all turned out this year!

Pumpkin Carving 2020

Last night Marilyn, Tashena, Sean, and I had our annual pumpkin carving party and it was a lot of fun!

Tashena and I picked out pumpkins from the Cross E Ranch pumpkin patch and we have accumulated a lot of carving tools and kits over the years.

Carving our pumpkins!

Our finished pumpkins!

Marilyn's Old School Jack-O-Lantern

My Witch Feet

Tashena's Sugar Skull

Sean's Miss Me (He designed this and I think it is cool).

Tashena is 20

Yesterday our family celebrated Tashena's birthday (her actual birthday is Wednesday) with dinner, birthday cake, and presents.  It is really hard for me to believe that she is 20 years old because it seems like yesterday we were celebrating her fifth birthday (her first birthday with our family).  My sister makes a copy-cat version of Cafe Rio salads and that was what Tashena picked for dinner.  It tastes just like the real thing!  After dinner she opened her presents.  She got some new shoes, a gift card, some money, and a train case for all of her makeup.

Happy Birthday Tashena!

Holiday Jazz Game

I don't go to very many Jazz games any more but I thought it would be really fun to go to a game with Sean and Tashena while she was in town over winter break.  I got tickets for the game last night against the Portland Trail Blazers and not only was it a really exciting game but it was so much fun being with Sean and Tashena.  We laughed and laughed when we weren't cheering our heads off!  The Jazz were ahead for the whole game, sometimes by as many as 23 points, but they let the Trail Blazers come back in the fourth quarter to get within one point!  The last five minutes of the game were really exciting and the crowd at Vivint Arena was out of control!  I haven't been to any games this season and I hardly recognized the team (Sean mentioned the same thing) but the players that I did recognize played very well last night.  Donovan Mitchell ended the game with 35 points, including some key free throws in the final minutes and a three-pointer with one minute left in the game.  Joe Ingles hit quite a few three-pointers (he made six of them during the game) in the first quarter to open up the game for the Jazz and it was incredibly exciting to watch.  Rudy Gobert had an absolutely beautiful block against Damian Lillard in the final seconds that pretty much sealed the game.  Our new player, Jordan Clarkson, also had an impact in his first game in a Jazz uniform.  He ended the night with nine points (which is pretty good since he only had one shoot-around with the team to get familiar with the offense).  The Jazz ended up winning 121-115 (Tashena thinks that she is a good luck charm).  This game was so much fun!

Christmas 2019

I had the best Christmas with my family this year!  We had our traditional cinnamon rolls and orange juice and then spent most of the morning opening presents.  We take turns opening presents, one at a time, starting from the youngest (Sean) to the oldest (my Mom).

Santa Claus really came through this year!  I got an Instant Pot (I have vowed that I will use it), some new Dr. Martens boots (Sean mentioned that I get a pair every year), a bunch of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies on Blu-ray because I got rid of all my copies on VHS (Sean mentioned that I am the only person in the world who has physical copies of movies any more), and a season subscription to Broadway Las Vegas.

My sister made everyone a blanket with our names embroidered on them (she recently got an embroidery machine for her business).  We opened them at the same time and they were a really big hit!

Tashena got a new iPhone with a case and some new clothes.

Sean was a very happy boy because he got a PlayStation VR and some games.  He has been waiting and waiting for Christmas to come so he could play with it!  We will never see him again!  After opening presents most of us took naps until our big Christmas dinner.  After dinner we played cards and then Marilyn, Kristine, and I went to see the movie Little Women which we all absolutely loved (review coming soon).  It was a wonderful Christmas!