Christmas at the Gilchrist home

This past Christmas was our first Christmas with just our little family of three! A while back my (Susan's) parents decided they were going to spend Christmas with my brother and his family in Georgia. So we decided that instead of flying home to Idaho like we usually do we would stay in NY and do our own little Christmas!!
I must admit I was sad not to be going home to be with family, but I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful and fun it was to celebrate as just our own little family!

Upstairs Tree

Christmas Eve we cooked our own little Prime Rib dinner (in honor of my Grandma's annual Christmas Eve Prime Rib dinner). Later that evening we went over to some friend's house for games and dessert. One thing I have learned since we moved away from Idaho is that there will always be friends that become like family and help fill that void. We are lucky to have many friends who are like family to us! After we got home that night we put Grayer to bed and met up with Santa to set up for Christmas morning:)

Christmas Eve Nap

Prime Rib Dinner

Even Hermione joined us for some Prime Rib:)

Grayer with the Scott kids -- they all got new Christmas Pajamas

Christmas Day we got up and went to early church. It was a great meeting with lots and lots of wonderful music!! Grayer is at that perfect age where he gets excited but not too excited that he wakes up at 4 in the morning to do presents, so we were able save presents until after we got home from church.

New Christmas pajamas

New Christmas Sunday outfit

Downstairs Tree

Coming downstairs to see what Santa brought

Checking out the Stocking goodies

New Geo-Trax Trains

New "Toy Story" pajamas

Legos from Grandma and Grandpa Christensen

Andy opening his massage appointment from Mrs. Claus:)

New Eastman Sweatshirt

After presents we made our Christmas Breakfast of ham, eggs, hash-browns, cinnamon rolls, grapefruit, and hot chocolate!!

Grayer enjoying his eggs
(In case you're wondering about the band-aid on his head... No, he was not injured he got "Cars" band-aids for Christmas and wanted to wear one on his forehead, he left it there for 2 days.)


Later that evening we were invited to some other friends house for Christmas dinner... see what I mean about wonderful friends?

What a wonderful memory this Christmas will always be for us!! I guess the only downer was Andy hurt his neck really bad the day before Christmas Eve and ended up needing to take muscle relaxers which kind of knocked him out so he was asleep on the couch in between events, but oh well we still had a great time together!!

Monkey Man

Andy's Mom made Grayer this adorable Monkey Hat!!

Come on New York, you're Laggin' Behind....

December 1st 2010

December 12th 2011

Bring on the Snow -- PLEASE!!!!!

MAC and CHEESE

Here are some cute pictures of Grayer eating his lunch the other day. He didn't want to sit in his booster seat so I let him sit on a regular chair. I thought it was cute how he could barely see over his bowl to scoop up more Mac and Cheese!!

Friends Forever

About a month or so ago Andy came to me and told me that his old mission companion and wife from the Philippines were going to come and visit us for a few days.... I was not too thrilled about the idea because I knew Andy would still have to go to school and work which would leave me alone to entertain these people who did not speak English that well, but I said "okay" (with only small amounts of murmuring)!!

On the day they were to arrive I got the house all clean and headed to my book club meeting that night. I got back home around 9:30 pm and shortly after our doorbell rang. I thought, wow, they are early (their plane was not supposed to land until 10:00pm) I opened the door and low and behold my two best friends from High School were standing on the doorstep. I was totally blown away with confusion and excitement... see video below.

So the company that I was expecting/slightly dreading from the Philippines turned out to be my girls, Emily and Mindy!! I was so thrilled, I could not believe it!! They had worked it all out with Andy without me suspecting a thing. I totally fell for it, but I'm glad I did because it was a beyond awesome surprise!!

We had such a good time together. We stayed up late almost every night catching up on life and remembering old memories!! We visited the Hill Cumorah, the Sacred Grove, and Niagara Falls.

The Hill Cumorah Visitor Center

Emily and Baby Jackson

Mindy

The sun was setting on our hike up the hill

The Monument at the top

Joseph Smith's home


In the Sacred Grove

We stopped to take pictures of the Palmyra Temple with all the Fall colors

Niagara Falls -- it was freezing!

Oh and we went out to eat at the Cheese Cake Factory

Another fun thing we did while they were here was sing together. Back in High School we sang together in a trio, so I got out our old CD and we re-learned an old song called the The Olive Tree, then we sang it in the Sacred Grove (we had the sister missionary giving us the tour record it for us)


Emily posted on her blog an old picture of us 3 girls when we were in 9th grade, so I went through some of my old photos and found a few that I thought I would share:)

High School Softball

High School Choir (Susan - front row, last one in the left. Emily - 2nd row, last one on the left. Mindy - front row, 3rd one in on the right.)

I think we were in our first year of college here

A fun girls trip to Emily's cabin!

Thank you so much Emily and Mindy for coming to visit me, I had a blast! You have started a great tradition... where should we go next?! Love you both!