The Real Christmas

With our family getting together for Christmas so early this year (Dec 13th), I wondered what Christmas would be like with just me and hubby. It was a very leisurely morning. Although I missed having Roxanne and Leland over in the morning, I cooked breakfast and then hubby and I headed upstairs where the Christmas tree was to see what 'Santa' put in our stockings and open the gifts from extended family. These pictures are of hubby bringing up gifts that were supposed to be in the stocking and then me about to open one of them. This is traditional wrapping in our family! Most years I like to get something bigger that we need instead of a bunch of smaller stuff that gets put on top of the already mountainous junk piles. That's what we did this year but in our stockings/robes/shirts, I received a booklight, gloves, hats and Lindor chocolate. Hubby received a book, a CD, lip balm, his favorite bath gel and chocolate.

Later in the morning we went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa Moseley. Then Hillary's family came by since they were down visiting the Gingell clan. I made a ham for our dinner and then for the rest of the evening we watched movies.

MTC Drop

Back in the day, when you took a missionary to the MTC everybody went in through the big lobby they have and into a large auditorium style room. If you were early, you had time to chat before the meeting started. Then, there was a lot of speaking going on and a video. The meeting lasted about an hour. I did this kind of missionary drop off a few times with nephews and nieces who left on missions. It's all different now.

We heard all about the new MTC drop off system and I envisioned something akin to dropping off a person at the airport. There are the similarities, you drive up, pull up to the curb, drop the person off and then leave. The airport could learn a thing or two from the MTC though. The differences are these, first off they mail you information on showing up and what time you're to be there. (If the airport did it like this, they might not have such crowds and long lines.) A-D this time, E-G that time, and so on. Our time was 1:15. They also mail you an auto pass to put on the dashboard as you're allowed only one vehicle so if you have a lot of family that want to go, better rent a big van!

As you drive in, there are volunteers in yellow vests or jackets to show you what to do and where to go. There was a first one asking us if we were dropping off a missionary and directing us to follow these two up ahead. There was one for each lane and they seemed to be directing all traffic to the left. As we drove along there were volunteers in their yellow jackets every few car lengths to tell you to keep going or to pull up to the curb. There were sign posts all along the curb, a generous car length apart, numbered 1 - 22 or so. Our post was #9.

Here is where it gets back to being like the airport... everyone jumps out, pulls out the luggage, hugs the traveler (missionary) goodbye and the traveler goes into the building and the driver and any other passengers hop back in the car and leave. But unlike the airport, there are a bunch of young men along the entire length of curb all dressed up so fine who wave and are welcoming and ready to help. One of them will even help your traveler/missionary get to the correct place inside the building and helps him carry his luggage... free!

I Want To Be A Missionary

It's official. Just a few minutes before these photos James was set apart to be a missionary in the Korea Busan Mission. Elder Moseley with President Metcalf.
Elder Moseley with Grandma & Grandpa Moseley
Elder Moseley with sisters Hillary and Sonia.

Roxanne had to work at her fabulous new job at VECC.
Elder Moseley with me and Richard.

Early Christmas

December 13, 2009 was a very busy day for the Moseley clan. The day began with everyone stopping by with soups to plug in and keep warm during church. That Sunday was the day James gave his 'farewell' talk in Sacrament Meeting. Extended family and several friends came to the meeting and later, to our home to visit and enjoy all the fabulous soup.

Once we were down to just our zany family, we began the celebrations. While we gathered, everyone stopped for some more soup and cookies. This day was Hillary's birthday (29th I'm sure!) as well as Grandma and Grandpa Moseley's wedding anniversary. They bugged out right after church tho. Since our Christmas party was on her birthday this year, most of Hillary's birthday and Christmas gifts were combined. We got her a nursing manual... maybe I should have checked it out for age appropriateness. For her Christmas, we gave Hillary and Marc some food storage that they get to pick out themselves (ok, it was a gift card to Smith's grocery store).

The girls all received lots of things they loved, including the quilts I made for Natasha and Emma. (We gave Samantha and Adelyn shoes... they get quilts next year.) One of Samantha's favorite gifts was a box full of Nerf type guns. I remember one of Sonia's favorite toys being a He-Man action figure when she was little.

Shawn received a nice bicycle lock from James and Sonia is always happy with anything from Vickie's (Victoria's Secret).

James received a few things to help him as a missionary. The turban on his head is really one of the plain shirts for P-day/exercise wear. His favorite gift was probably the Ipod speaker dock Hillary got him and hopefully one day he'll appreciate the condensed family history book he received.

Richard received some much needed slippers and this cool gun/rifle cleaning kit. I've never seen one as nice as this with it's case and all and I'm sure all the weapons need a good cleaning.

James is good. He was making bread one day (which made Hillary totally jealous that her little brother could make bread) and I was mentioning how I needed a new good rolling pin because although still functional, mine had its handles falling off. He remembered and scouted out a new one for me for Christmas so here I am being goofy and acting like I'm some bad dude spinning the thing on my knee. Whaa-shaaw!

We've been trying to find a good time to get everyone together for a family photo for awhile now and it just wasn't happening. Thanks to Sonia, we did get this family photo on our Christmas day but not before the kids had their silly stunt photos!

We all had a very Merry Christmas day and hope that all our of family and friends had a Merry Christmas too... whatever day they celebrated it on. After all, we should really have that Christmas spirit every day of the year.

Thanksgiving Day 2009

Gotta love this one day a year we get to be thankful for all the blessings (and stuff) we have. One of the things I'm grateful for is all the things my kids make and bring to share. It's all yummy delectable food and goes so well with my turkey, potatoes and best ever stuffing (which doesn't get stuffed). We have tables everywhere with 15 of us. We were down one this year with Marc having been sick all week and feeling sicker still. Sure hope he doesn't have the flu. I even got out my nice china plates and was sad there wasn't really anything that would enable me to use more of the china set. We usually set the food out buffet style so all that was really needed on the tables were the plates. Next time.

It seems like when the family gets together, there are always fun tricks to show the little ones. Usually it's Marc that has great tricks but this year Leland filled in. I have no idea what he's doing with the toothpicks but he surely had everyone's attention!

Once the (Gingell) girls were done with their dinner, they were clamoring for Auntie to paint their nails. Sonia dutifully found my supplies and was more than happy to oblige them.

Then comes the part where we celebrate Roxanne's birthday. Roxanne always has to have her birthday celebrated on Thanksgiving instead of having her own day but she's such a trooper. (No worries, Grandma Petersen had the same problem.) Roxanne got lots of gift cards so I see some new clothes in her future!

As the evening evolved, we had an impromptu photo shoot with grandma and grandpa. First with their great-grandchildren and then with their grandchildren. Everyone was being pretty silly.

As we sat around visiting, Buggie had a great time sliding down her mom's legs. She kept climbing up on the couch and then sliding down Hillary's legs for about 20-30 minutes. Phenomenal.