Christmas 2014

I was so glad that Miriya was able to come for Christmas this year since it was not quite the same without Taylor here to celebrate with us.  I think I would have been in tears all day if neither of my older kids were home.  Miriya arrived on the 23rd.  We did family activities on the 24th.  It was supposed to be snowy but instead was quite rainy all day long.  We dressed up in our rain clothes and went for walk in the metro park anyway.  It was so nice to have the entire place to ourselves.  When we finished our hike, we stopped at Saxbys and got hot chocolate.  We also saw Big Hero 6 in the afternoon.  In the evening we had our traditional ham and funeral potatoes and read
the scripture story of Jesus's birth.

The morning was filled with presents.  Isaac got a new bike.  Nick got some playmobile toys.  Tom got some new skis and I got a new ipad.  After the present parade we packed up and went to Kalahari waterpark.  This is a Rasmussen tradition that celebrates Taylor's birthday.  It was fun to still do it even though Taylor wasn't with us this year.  We did get to skype Taylor before we left.  I guess the mission rules are that they can only talk for 40 minutes.  It seemed like 5 minutes and then we were done.  He sat in front of the computer with his companion so I didn't get to ask him if he was getting along with his companion, too awkward.  He looked good.  It sounds like he is having a hard time following all the Portuguese conversations but I think it is slowly getting easier for him.  His companion is Brazilian so it is Portuguese all the time for that poor boy.  Nothing like an immersion program to help you learn the language.

Over the past 2 years we have gotten a group of friends together during the week between Christmas and New Years to go down to Kentucky for a caving day trip.  This year was so awesome to have Miriya with us.  The boys are getting big enough that I don't need to have a hand hold on them all the time either.  Even more fun.  Last year for the Father's Day Sharing Time I got several dads from the ward to come to Primary and play the Newlywed game.  One of the questions was what is your favorite thing to do with your dad?  One little girl said, "Go hiking in a cave like we did at Christmas time."  That made me so happy!  I secretly have an agenda to advance female activities in this ward so that was totally awesome to hear. And yes, she came along on this year's outing as well.  We forgot the camera on this caving outing, bummer, so no pictures this time.

For New Years I worked and it was CRAZY.  Ohio is in the midst of a serious flu epidemic.  Unfortunately, this season's flu vaccine does not cover the strain that is actually infecting the population so our hospital is overflowing with very sick old people.  We are boarding patients in the ER because there is not room for them on the floor.  I don't think I have seen less than 40 people in the waiting room on any shift.  No matter how fast I work the people just keep coming.

I got worked this year.  Next year I plan to take this week off, whew!

It ended all too soon when Miriya had to fly back to Salt Lake to work.  We cleaned up Christmas decorations on Friday.  Now the kids are back in school and things are going back to normal.