December 2012

 Families can be together forever!

So below I am going to do a brief rundown of all the things we've been doing for the last month!  There's a lot, so be prepared!

We have had many parties, one of which was a farewell party for Eliza, where we had family and friends all come over! 

 We squeezed juice out of pomegranate seeds for 4 hours :)

 It was a long evening...

 We also did a lot of baking and making of Christmas ornament stars!  You can see some of the goodie baskets in production to the left here.

We cracked a bunch of walnuts!  This is one of our favorite family activities!  If you've never done it, I would highly recommend giving it a try!

And when Luke got home, we went as a family to see the much-awaited-for Hobbit!!!  Gollum is our favorite!

We also celebrated Christmas a week and a half early, while Eliza was still here!  Here are some "Christmas morning" pictures!

 yea... Tess was kind of out of it...

 And then there was the usual Christmas dinner

And we made Luke's favorite cookies- pfeffernodix (more commonly known as pfeffernusse) 

 Then we took a day off from school and work and spent it together in San Francisco!

 (because it was Eliza's last day in California, with her family!)

 Following tradition, we consumed an "Earthquake" at Ghiradelli Square, and then drove back to the Stake Center for Eliza's setting apart.

 And we said our final goodbyes for a year-and-a-half!  The four kids drove home and Mom and Dad stayed in the valley to drive Eliza to the airport in the morning

So we had a few more parties in between (1 teenage get-together with a lot of college freshmen from Luke's class, and 1 ward choir party) and then we launched off at 2 a.m. Christmas eve and got on a plane and...

... a few hours later we were in Wisconsin!!!  Grandma and Grandpa Kemper (on Mom's side) live in Wisconsin, and just down the street live Aunt Kristen and Uncle Chris, with their son Peter (all the rest of the kids have grown up and moved away!) 

So we thought...

 So we celebrated it again!  In Wisconsin!

 Santa Clause struck again!

 And we spent the rest of the day out on pond in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard!  The ice was great for skating or walking!

I decided that we need to have a gene-recount.  Luke seems to have stolen all of the "balance" genes while Levi, Tess, Eliza and I have been left without!  The ironic thing is that this was the only time Luke fell...

 We all had wonderful opportunities to hold adorable babies the entire week!  This is Lauren who is only a couple of months old, and her older brother Lincoln was there running around with our other cousin's children Wylie and Harlan.

 We even let Levi hold the baby!

 Aunt Kristen gave us opportunities to paint a little bit too

Luke (middle), Tess (below), and I (above) painted these for Aunt Kristen to "teenagerize" her basement. We had a grand time!  

(42 is the answer to life the universe and everything)

Each painting is an interpretation of "Man's inhumanity to Man"- Uncle Chris.

 AAAnnndd Tess and Luke decided to paint a tree too...

 In the mean time, Levi worked on his science fair project with Grandpa: Does adding oyster shell to Chicken feed strengthen the hardness of a chicken's egg?

 We left Wisconsin at around 4:00 New Year's eve, although it took some convincing to let the security guys let us through... Mom forgot to take her tablet out of her bag, Dad forgot his glasses in his shirt, so he had to be re-scanned, I forgot to take out the hand-blender in my bag, Tess got her scriptures searched, and Levi got in serious trouble for having his pvc pipe science experiment in his suitcase!  Needless to say, we all had to be recombobulated (except for Luke of course!).  We also almost missed our last connection flight from L.A. to Sacramento- we ran onto the plane with -5 minutes to spare. However, the plane pulled into the Sacramento airport as the clock struck midnight and the new year began!  We got home exhausted and... 

It's hitting now.

Other Notes:

• Luke took a train back to Provo yesterday, and is putting in his mission papers this next week.
• January should be exciting!
• Eliza's sending emails and letters all the time, if you would like to send her mail she would LOVE it! If you would like her address, or you would like keep up with how she's doing, then check out hermanahoughton.blogspot.com.
• I hope you've had a wonderful Holiday Season!!

Love,

Marta