Happy Santa Lucia

It's December 13th, Santa Lucia. It's the day a lot of Europe, Sweden included, celebrates light in the middle of a very dark winter. The eldest daughter of the family, wearing a crown of candles, wakes the family and they enjoy breakfast.  We have celebrated this since my youth. Americanize it. I woke up the family and we had danishes, hot chocolate, fruit, eggs and bacon. Each kid got an ornament from our trip to Nauvoo. We got a lovely carved wood ornament from Sweden from mom and dad.

Our table is set! Dad made the candle abra for advent.
Notice the framed picture from "White Christmas" movie!

Saffron bread, traditionally eaten and Christmas and Easter in Sweden.
Thanks to Jenny and Chris Fosdick for giving me saffron from Turkey. That stuff is expensive!

So, the day got better and better. After breakfast I walked with Sherie. Sandy is recovering from foot surgery. I then went and got Mel from school. Allie wanted to be checked out, too. So I got her. Then Mel and I met Keenan at the temple. We have ONE female card that needed work. At first, it seemed silly to worry about just one card, but I really wanted to get this work done. I realized one card is important. It's one family member! Elisabet Helgesdotter, from Norway, born in 1820. Mel did the baptism and confirmation; I then did the initiatory. I will do the endowment next week and that will be our Christmas present to Elisabet. Can't think of a better thing to do. Melia is so cute in the temple. I love that girl. It was great to watch Keenan baptize and confirm her. A blessing!

We leave at 5:00 this afternoon to get on a plane to California. We will be in Disneyland tomorrow with Derek, Rachel and Rose. We will also be there on Saturday. We will go to church with Der and family on Sunday, then fly home. The girls will only miss one day of school. Should be a blast. It's an early Christmas present to us all!

Decorating Upstairs for Christmas

It is Thanksgiving weekend, after all. What does one do after the Black Friday shopping? They dig out the Christmas boxes and decorate. I was so grateful that Allie and Kiana decorated the tree. Here are some pictures of things around the house, including Honu.

The tree!

The end table in living room with fun Christmas stuff

Honu discovered the tree. So far, no tragedies or ornaments lost

me and Allie goofing around

the red cabinet in the family room

corner shelf in living room

now Honu is thinking about Christmas

White cabinet in the kitchen...mostly Swedish stuff

More Thanksgiving Weekend Photos

Thanks to the magic of email, I have more photos from Kris. I have also included some pictures that I took on my phone. It was a fun weekend. We also got Kamiko home. It took him a day to get here, flying standby, on the busiest flight weekend of the year. He got to SFO and had to wait until a later flight to get to Phoenix, then flights from Phoenix to SLC were booked, so he spent the night at the airport. He talked to a crazy young lady studying astrology and spreading God's gospel. He had quite the missionary talk with her and she said she is a Mormon and is going to look up the church when she gets back home. He left there at 9:00 am our time and I picked him up at 10:30 am. He's in bed. No sleep for a couple of days.

Jenny, Kris and me...Sisters!

super cute picture of mom and dad

As Kris says, "it isn't a Hunter event without cards." Mom, Eryn, Dad and Allison

More cards...Kris, Allie, me, Keenan and Mike Reason

They are all asleep. Scott and Jen and Doug

Allie enjoying wings at Wingers after seeing "Lincoln" movie with grandma and grandpa

While I Missed being in Colorado and Didn't do any Black Friday Shopping, Thanksgiving was a Blast!

Kris and Doug have been here for a couple of weeks due to a super-computing convention Doug attended. I know, sounds super-smart and super-nerdy, I know. They extended their stay to include Thanksgiving. I took a little holiday from Adcock family life and stayed the first weekend they were here at mom and dad's with them. I even got a substitute for primary and went to church with them. It was nice to be a kid and not a mom.

Later in the week, we went to see "To Kill a Mockingbird" on the big screen. It's a classic book and most excellent movie. Jen, Kris and I all love the movie. We were in HEAVEN! It was Jen, Kris, Doug, Allison and I who went. We just sat and enjoyed every minute of the newly digitally-remastered masterpiece! How we love Atticus, Jem, Scout, Dill and Boo. The role of Atticus Finch was Gregory Peck's favorite role ever.

The day before Thanksgiving, I got my food assignments prepared. I was in charge of apple pie, green salad, veggie platter and stuffing. I also made a pie to take to Deb's house on Wednesday. I was busy washing and cutting veggies. Thanks to Mel's help, the apple pie came together quickly. She used my handy apple-peeler-corer-slicer that uncle Mike had given me to prep the apples and I made the pie in record time. Yippee! We went to Deb's house that night for pie with all her kids that were in town. Jon and Sarah were there with their 4 kiddos. They came from Washington state. Kenna and Klint and kids and Clark and kids came from their nearby homes. Vanessa, Clark's wife, was working. We enjoyed visiting and eating pie.

Melia and Emily Sykes - Cousins!

More Cousins! Allie and Em

One more member added to the Aarl Club -
Members now include Spencer Aarl Amundson, Aarl R Hunter and James Aarl Sykes

Thanksgiving was great! I got up and walked with my buddy, Sherie Ritchie. I love her. She is a good friend. Loyal, understanding, kind and wise. Sandy didn't join us because she had foot surgery and is in Arizona. She won't be walking for a while, though. After walking and showering, it was time to go to Jen's to join everyone for FOOD and FUN! We ate around 1:30 because Mel and Keenan had to head back home by 5:00 so Mel could get on the road with the Watkins for a soccer tournament in St. George. Mike Reason, Jen and Scott's friend from college, and Eryn Peck, Allison DeVuyst's friend from elementary school, joined us. We had a great time eating, playing games and visiting. The funny event was when we were playing cards after dinner. Jen had put a disk in her player grand piano and there was lovely Christmas music coming from the living room. After one song, Keenan said "That sounds great, Em!" Em responded from the office "thanks." Keenan thought she had been playing, while it was a player piano all along. We got a good laugh out of that.

Another highlight was the dead bird in the bushes outside of Jen's family room window. We don't know how long it had been there, but it looked pretty bad. Ewww!

The Bird!

Emily Sykes and Allie

Photo-bombing James DeVuyst

I love this pic of Melia and Allie

Allie, me, James, Allison and Grandma talking before dinner

Reason brought treats for us all - the kids love this kind of stuff!

Glad we had G-Unit to make the gravy

Allie had wanted a salad with dressing on it. I made a recipe from Sandy Hewlett. It had homemade dressing on it.

Ode to Weight Watchers - Veggie Platter

Me, Dad and Mike Reason

Cute - "Little Jimmy", Andrew, Allison and Eryn

Watch out! Rod is armed!

Mel and Allie

Allie and kinda Mel

Melia messing around

Emily was actually playing the piano in this one

Cute Allison

Scott and Doug napping after dinner

Aunt Kris and Allie

Cute Grandpa

Jenny impersonating Uncle Richard

Em, Allie, Mel and Keenan

teaching Reason how to play 5 Crowns - Allie won!

One of my hands

A winning hand

Dessert!

I love it when Allie plays with my hair

Christian and Allie in their yoga pants

Little Jimmy, Reason and Keenan

Doesn't mom look cute?

Frist Snowman of the season

Keenan and I took a nap from 9:00 to 11:00 pm then went out to try to get free loot at Sports Authority. The first 80 people in line get a scratch card worth 10 - 500 dollars. When we drove up, it was evident we wouldn't be among the first 80, so we went back home to bed. Allie, in the meantime, was out shopping with her friend Kiana. They had a great time and completed their Christmas shopping. I have fond memories of Black Friday shopping with Keenan's sister, our sister-in-law Renee, and Keenan's mom when we lived in Texas. We have also enjoyed it the last two years in Denver. It seems weird to have "missed out". That's the beauty of going to Disneyland for Christmas. I don't have to do any shopping. My shopping is DONE!

I woke temporarily to see what Allie and Kiana had purchased, then I went back to bed til around 9:30 when Karen called me from her marathon shopping.

Mel has won their first game in the tournament. Next game is at 3:30. In case you are wondering about Kamiko, he went to California to spend the holiday with Walter Frank and the rest of the Eng bunch. I'm sure they are having a blast.