CHRISTMAS 2011

Kelly and I when we were very young


The whole family----a long time ago!!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas in 2011. We had wonderful time with my family and with Michael's family. We were able to Skype with James on Christmas day and that was our best Christmas present. He is so happy and loving the work that he is doing. He will be home in 4 months. Time is just flying by so fast.

This year for Christmas I worked hard on getting all of my parents slides of all of us kids put onto a DVD for them so that they could look at the pictures anytime. It was quite the undertaking to go through over 1300 slides and decide which ones to keep and what to throw out. It was fun looking at the slides and laughing at our funny hair dos and outfits from the past. Fun times with the family!!! These pictures are two of the slides that gives a good picture of our funny clothes and hairstyles. My parents wanted to make sure that each of their children got a copy of these slides so that we could share them with our own children. They are such a treasure to have. We are so thankful that we have pictures of Kelly and other loved ones who have passed on.

Another thing that we did for Christmas was I took all of my Dad's reel to reel tapes and had them put onto CD's so that we could have the recordings of us when we sang in the group when we were younger and also the run down of what we got for Christmas each year. What a treasure these CD's are to us. It has our Grandpa Smith telling his life story and singing songs he knew as a young boy. It is hard to hear Kelly's voice in 1990 after he had been married just a short time and then he is gone by the next Christmas. So thankful we have his voice recorded and memories of him to look back on. We still miss him but hearing his voice and seeing pictures of him bring his memory back to us and we are thankful that he will always be a part of our eternal family. We all ended up with 19 CD's that gives us many hours of entertaining music and interaction as a family. What great treasures these are for each of us. So thankful for modern technology that makes it possible to capture these memories from the past.

It was certainly a Christmas to remember. Love our families and love being with them.
Christmas 2011 was a magical and wonderful Christmas!!! Looking forward to Christmas 2012 when our missionary will be home. Can't wait!!!!