Nothing new?

I am afraid that I have joined the seldom bloggers. Our Christmas was nice and it was especially fun to have children here. Allie loved unwrapping presents but she is getting too smart. She knew exactly which presents had her princess dolls in them. Of course, she wanted to open those first. At the end she said, "Where's my Belle?" We had gotten Cinderella and Snow White but not Belle. Not to worry, her mother bought her Belle after she had her dilatation because she was so brave this time. Preston got a Little Tykes piano that wasn't wrapped and he loved that so much he didn't need to unwrap anything. The adults got very little and didn't feel the least bit slighted.

Allie had her esophagus dilated on the 27th. This is the first time her GI doc did it as a scheduled procedure and not that radiologist as an emergency procedure. Allie was much calmer, probably because she hadn't spent several hours in ER. They are going to repeat it every 4 to 6 months and hopefully everything will go much smoother. She even woke up yesterday requesting to go to the doctors (that had NEVER happened before) so that she could get a popsicle. We bought the popsicles so that she wouldn't have to go to the docs more than needed.

We are planning a calm family New Years Eve. We have two tickets to Hale Center Theater with Sue and Wayne early in the evening. Dave and Ya-ping may go because the main character was Dave's drama TA. We have to go buy balloons today so Mark can decorate properly. We had a great year and expect more of the same next year.

Great Day

We had a great day today. Rick had a vacation day that he had to take or lose, so he took the day off. He, Dave, and Mark went to see a 3D movie at the planetarium about walking on the moon. Meanwhile, the girls and Preston all went to the mall. Then we went to lunch and the zoo. It was about 50 degrees today so the zoo was great. The black bears were quite funny and Preston loved every animal. We were walking around in our shirt sleeves and not feeling cold. It was nice to spend so much time together. Now we are doing a little bonding in front of the TV. Mark watches a Christmas movie everyday (we have over 20 Christmas movies including old TV series holiday episodes), and today we are watching "The Nightmare before Christmas". Tomorrow (Friday) we will have our "Christmas" dinner together. Rick has to work Friday night and then Saturday we will go see his mother and brothers. We'll come home Sat. night to be here Christmas morn.
We hope you all have a great weekend, too.

Graduate

David did it! He finished all his class work and will soon be an official college grad. He is planning to do some substitute teaching while he waits to interview at grad schools. He doesn't really want to apply for a job where he will feel bad about leaving to do interviews and besides they would like to spend a couple of months in Taiwan after the grad school process is over. He should be able to work almost every day, but the pay isn't that great.

Mark and I liked the choir concert, but not quite as much as the other concerts I have gone to. They had a great soloist but I didn't get to hear as much of the choir itself as I would have liked. The traffic was CRAZY but it was worth it in the end.

We are planning on going to the Church Museum to see the display on Joseph Smith sometime during the holiday. We would love to see the new film in the JS Memorial building but that may be too hard to get tickets to.
This time of year it is especially hard to have you all so far away. We miss you and think of you often.

Yes, We still live

Sorry for the long, dry spell on our blog. I have just been plain lazy. David got our computer up and running. He had to pay HP $20 for the recovery disk and that really irratated him, but I am glad to have an English operating system again. Chinese was a little difficult for me to decipher.

Mark, Sue and I get to go to the MoTab Christmas Concert tonight. We have a very nice man in our ward who is in the choir. He had some extra tickets and offered them during Sunday School. I asked for two but they only had three left so they gave me all three. Mark doesn't usually go places with us, so I am thrilled he thinks the concert is worth attending.

I have Christmas almost all done. I have stocking stuffers and Susanne still to go, but everything else is done. We will be going shopping next week for a Sub for Santa family but that shouldn't be too bad.

We are freezing, but the snow hasn't been too bad. David stayed in Provo a couple of nights because he gets out of class after 9 on Tues. and Thurs. and the roads have been bad, but he has a friend he can stay with so it hasn't been too bad. I had to drive to school in the snow one day and I didn't even panic! I may be a long winter, though, because it has been colder a lot earlier this year.