December

My mom came to stay with us just after Thanksgiving and Alex came home from college for Christmas break. Hannah pops in from Reno every once in a while.

Glen, Eric, Ryan, and our nephew Brent did a lot of swimming back in 2007.  There was a grant given to the pool, and if you brought youth with you to swim, you all got to swim for free. There is still a plaque commemorating it on the wall at the pool and we still have the little trophy they gave Glen. 

Back then, Glen used to go before school to swim laps. I never went. Then Glen stopped going and at the beginning of this school year he decided to start swimming laps again, and I started attending different water exercise classes 2-3 times/week. I now stick to the water jogging class. I really love it. Besides working your legs, there are also exercises that strengthen the stomach and arms.

At the beginning of December, Glen and Eric participated in the Live Nativity again. Poured rain on them their last night. Didn't get a clear photo of Eric, but here's the whole scene from a distance.

Hannah had her 27th birthday and I had my 61st. Glen got me Star Trek socks, which I love, but to me the Captain Picard socks look more like Elder Renlund, one of our Apostles, than like Captain Picard. It makes me laugh. Here's a photo of the socks next to a photo of Elder Renlund.

Every year the town puts up a Christmas tree, of course. This year's tree seemed to have more lights than usual. I love it. 

We put up our trees, too, of course.

Glen retired from teaching for the 3rd and last time.

doesn't he look SO happy to be done?

Caroling has been a Perazzo family tradition since before I married Glen. We went again this year...and it was probably the best caroling weather I remember having. It was great.

the cookies we made didn't only go to the neighbors-we got some, too

On Christmas Eve, we went over to Dad Perazzo's and had him open the presents Glen got for him. Before he opened his gifts, he shared with us some of his memories. Here is Hannah listening to him (and somehow it turned out to be the only photo I took during Christmas that she was in--Sorry, Hannah).

Christmas was a quiet affair. I guess that's typical when the youngest person in your house is 22.

We followed the Jervis tradition (a New England tradition) of lighting a bayberry candle at sunset Christmas Eve and letting it burn all the way out to bring good luck in the new year. Usually it goes out in the middle if the night, but ours kept burning this year...16 hours later, it was still burning!

the picture I took around 5:15 am and it still burned for 3 more hours

We didn't open any gifts until church was over and Hannah had arrived from Reno. Ryan and Angeles joined us with a video chat. We started off with Eric, Hannah, and Alex looking for the paper mache pickle Eric made in 2nd grade. Eric found it first, so he got to be the first to pass out a present from under the tree.

Alex and Eric (and Hannah is behind Eric)

Glen with a gift...and Ryan is there through the miracle of technology

Mom opening one of her gifts

Ryan and Angeles got me this awesome shirt!

New Year's Eve was a bit quiet too. We had LOTS of rain Friday night/Saturday morning (there was some flooding in town) which turned to snow Saturday afternoon. The electricity went out that night so we got to play games using flashlights for a while. 

New Year's Eve also meant the end of a 5 year project that took me 6 years to complete. Six years ago my sister had given me a book where each day there was a different question to answer...and you did that for 5 years. I started it in 2017, but half-way through the year I stopped for some reason. I didn't pick it up again until 2019...totally missing out on 2018, but I completed 2020, 2021, and 2022. Some questions got the same answers year after year, but some didn't. It was a fun project. Thanks, Deni! 

At our house we just had (have) mud, but there was flooding in town

games at the Jamieson's is a favorite

New Year's Day the sun came out and was very bright against the snow...which mostly melted here in Fallon. It had snowed so much in Reno that Hannah's church was actually canceled. The picture doesn't do the snow justice as snow had already started melting.