Thanksgiving Break

Brian was on call with the Ambulance most of Thanksgiving break, so we were very excited when his family decided to drive up and visit us for Thanksgiving this year. It was so fun to see Bracken around his "Grandpa RoB" (lots of emphasis on the "B"), "Gamma Sue," "Lissa," "Ricky" and "Kristi Sue." Bracken loved having such an attentive and adoring audience. He would dance, sing, and just go crazy for us every night before bedtime. He was so cute and fun that he usually got to stay up an extra hour or so while we laughed at and clapped for him. We also played in the snow a ton while everyone was here. Don't you love the little French snowman Kristi and Melissa made with Bracken?

After our delicious Thanksgiving dinner (complete with nine pies for seven people!) we ran outside to play in the snow. Bracken loved sledding and walking in the snow, as well as eating the snow.

Top Left: Kristi; Top Right: Melissa; Bottom Left: Brian and Rick pushing Bracken and I on the sled; Bottom Right: Kristi and Rob

I'm grateful for my family!

Ever since I joined the Johnson family I've heard about the "Newspaper game" but have never gotten a chance to play it. But on Thanksgiving we had some extra newspapers and our downstairs neighbors weren't home so we decided to play. That is one noisy, fun game! We were all jumping up and down, yelling out different animal names and getting smacked with a newspaper. Bracken wanted to play too, so we gave him his own rolled up newspaper. We were impressed that he knew which animal each of us was. We laughed a lot as he ran around yelling "Emu! Wombat! Buffalo!" and smacking us with the newspaper.

For Black Friday we looked around at CAL-Ranch (Rob's favorite store), played games while Bracken napped, and then went sledding. We all had a blast, and Bracken thought sledding was definitely a cool thing to do.

Left: Brian grooving down the hill; Right: Brian and Bracken racing Melissa

Left: Kristi and Melissa crashing at the bottom; Right: Family Tubing!

I love this picture of Melissa and Kristi right after they crashed. It just makes me smile! We all had so much fun over the whole break. I'm so glad our family was able (and willing) to make the long drive up here to be with us. We love you guys!