Welcome Home

Matt's brother, Jeremy, returned from a two year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just 1 week before Christmas. We went to Redlands to hear him speak in church and report on his mission the weekend after Christmas. Jeremy was a wonderful missionary and had a lot of great experiences.

He's in Provo now getting ready for BYU's soccer practice next week. Watch out girls!

Christmas 2007

Christmas Eve in San Francisco

We spent Christmas Eve day in San Francisco with all the Glausers. It was a lot of fun and the weather was beautiful, as usual.

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under construction, again.

Just another little facelift...

And if you don't mind helping me out a bit here, I'd appreciate it. Last time around I had a little trouble finding suitable text colors considering that most computers vary a bit in their color display. Can you see my post text, links, post titles, etc?

'twas the day after Christmas

December 26th numerology:

8 Glausers depart

Dad does 6 loads of laundry

(isn't he wonderful?)

Mom takes a 4 hour nap

2 new toys are broken

1 picture is posted

(it's going to take me a c0uple more days to sort through the remaining 399 of them)

We had a very merry Christmas. Hope you did too!

Christmas Sunday

The one who's willing to pose for a portrait gets the spotlight:

a whole lotta Glausers

The party has begun.

Birthday Reunion

A vanload of Glausers arrived today! It's the first time we've been together for over 2 years.

It was the best birthday present. Happy 29th Birthday, Matt!

(We rescheduled the ski trip, by the way).

Grandma's visit

Life is always better when Grandma comes. Thanks for spending the week with us!

foiled plan

Matt's birthday is Saturday. I was so excited this year to have found the perfect gift for him and something he was sure to love:

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a surprise ski trip to Lake Tahoe.

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He had Tuesday off work and my mom's here this week and planned to stay with the kids. Things were working out perfectly. Perfectly until I checked the weather report on Monday night, that is.

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The forecast showed 100% chance of heavy snow in Tahoe.

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Well, blast. That snow will be great in a couple of days, but I'm not up for driving or skiing through heavy snow. I was so disappointed when I broke the news that he wouldn't be getting a surprise ski trip after all.

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Instead, we visited the nearby Jelly Belly Factory. It wasn't quite the thrill of alpine skiing, but it was fun and we all left with an adequate suger overload.

On the way home, we visited the Oakland LDS Temple to see the beatiful lights and nativity scene. It ended up being a fun day afterall.

. Now, I have just 2 days to come up with an alternate birthday present for my easy going husband who doesn't really need or want anything....

A short intermission

Yes, hi. It's me again. I took a little break there, didn't I? Cut me some slack though, as I have been going slightly out of my mind while planning our move to another hemisphere, preparing for Christmas and hosting our Glauser Family Reunion next week. Blogging's pretty much taking a back seat these days. We'll see how the rest of the month goes.

Christmas Favorites: Children's Books

Our top three:

What are yours?

hark how the bells..

Remember this post?

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Since we couldn't see it in person this year, this video we took last year helped us ring in the Christmas season. It really is one of my

favorite New York moments

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(Have I mentioned we were complete New York wannabees while we lived in Jersey? We were. I love New York City, especially at Christmas. )

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When we first saw this, we were standing in Rockefeller Center gazing up at the gigantic Christmas tree. All of a sudden across 5th Avenue along the side of Saks, this started:

To quote myself from last year,

"It was so loud, so full of energy, and oh so Christmasy!"