The Johnson's: December 2013

Christmas Eve dinner!

Stephen and I just love the holidays but being so far from home means holidays are usually spent alone. Not this year! Christmas Eve our neighbors asked us to join them for Christmas Eve dinner. Our evening started off with tons of appetizers which were to die for-I had to limit myself to one of everything so I would have room for dinner! For dinner Jill and Kate spent all day preparing ham, potatoes, spinach casserole and my favorite a corn casserole!

Right before dinner Jill handed out Christmas Crackers. These are he neatest things Ive ever seen!
Wikipedia definition: Christmas crackers are part of Christmas celebrations primarily in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. A cracker consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper,^[1] making it resemble an oversized sweet-wrapper. The cracker is pulled by two people, often with arms crossed, and, much in the manner of a wishbone, the cracker splits unevenly.^[1] The split is accompanied by a mild bang or snapping sound produced by the effect of friction on a shock-sensitive, chemically-impregnated card strip (similar to that used in a cap gun).^[1] One chemical used for the friction strip is silver fulminate,^[2] which is highly unstable.
Assembled crackers are typically sold in boxes of three to twelve. These typically have different designs usually with red, green and gold colours. Making crackers from scratch using tissue paper and the tubes from toilet rolls is a common activity for children.

Crackers are typically pulled at the Christmas dinner table or at parties. In one version of the cracker tradition, the person with the larger portion of cracker empties the contents from the tube and keeps them. In another each person will have their own cracker and will keep its contents regardless of whose end they were in. Typically these contents are a coloured paper hat; a small toy, small plastic model or other trinket and a motto, a joke, a riddle or piece of trivia on a small strip of paper.^[3] The paper hats, with the appearance of crowns, are usually worn when eating Christmas dinner. The tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times, and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear.^[1]

We had so much fun opening the Christmas Crackers before dinner! Lots of fun and food had by all on Christmas Eve!

Christmas morning I got up and made homemade biscuits and gravy! After our tummy's were full, we opened Christmas presents sent from the Wassmers! We got so many nice gifts! I think Boyfriend was the most excite because he finally got to get into his stocking that was loaded with catnip!!!

After we opened presents we got ready and headed to St. Anne Country Club. Paul and Mike invited us to spend the holiday with the Napolitan and Beaudion families. They prepared a fabulous meal of lobster, prime rib, fish, veggies, ect...and the appetizers were to die for! If you wanted to golf they opened the course to family...it was to cold for us to golf. We did get in a couple of drives though! The kids were hoping to go sledding but the snow had melted a few days back when it was 60+degrees! (We spent that day raking leaves from around the pond!) The kids instead had a nerf fight! Big guns with foam bullets flying everywhere...inside and out! We had a fantastic day with friends and family...they made us feel like part of the clan! Thank you Mike and Paul for everything!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!!

Our trip...

Drove all day Friday in rain made it to Toledo Ohio

Saturday got up early and drove to Marty and Julie's. Had lunch with them and arrived at mom and dads about 4. Went to Zaehringers for pizza dinner. The weather was bad. We ran into two separate white outs. I also got pulled over after exiting a toll booth. The cop said I was going 63 which I was but I thought the speed limit was 55. Oh well. Boyfriend was laying on my lap when the cop came to the passenger side. Boyfriend got up walked over to Stephens side and the cop petted boyfriend. Let's just say I didn't get a ticket!

Sunday got up and went to Braxton's basketball game at northscott he high. After his game we took the girls and met Connie and Butch at Sanchos for lunch. Ate lots of cheese dip. We stopped by jodees house to say hi and headed back to moms and helped her get a ham dinner ready. Brett Hamilton and his family came over and had dinner with us and Zaehringers.

Monday we got up and met Connie, her daughter and grandson at the festival of trees. She got us free tickets. All of us went to lunch at the Chinese buffet. Yummy- then mom dad Stephen and I headed to the davenport court house to watch Lisa's trial. She kicked ass! The judge even came out and talked to us a bit. We left and headed home. Mom and dad raked leaves and Stephen and I relaxed. We picked up Braxton at 6:15 and went to yourtopia where Britanee works. Jodee came with Jacob and Jordan and some other kids. After icecream we went back to Zaehringers and skyped Marty and Julie. Us adults opens our Elfster gifts.

Tues mom and I went shopping all day long. The boys went to farm n fleet with us -got Kay his shirt. Then mom and I headed off to best buy to purchase a new camera. Stopped by oak express to see Nicole but she was to lunch. Ended up buying a new dress and a coat from Burlington At 6 pm we met Graverts at Happy Joes for dinner. It was so good spending time with them. After dinner went to Tim Heims house for a visit. He is getting a divorce poor guy! Got home and tried to transfer pics.

Wed we got up. Mom went and picked the kids up from the dentist so we could pack. They stayed a couple of hours and we had monkey bread. We left for centrailia about noon. We did stop by oak express and talked to Nicole for a bit. Finally got to Kambryes about 5 ish and headed to Farmington MO to Stephens folks. Sheri and her family were there and Cody and Elisa came later that night. We set up camp in the basement of the new house.

Thurs was Thanksgiving. Sheri worked hard the whole day before getting everything ready. We made a run to mcdonalds that morning not for breakfast but to sit in the parking lot to use Wifi. Phyllis house has no internet and very little cell reception. They are in the middle of no where! Had a wonderful meal and later that night after clean up Sheri Logan Jessie Kambrye Stephen me elisa Cody and Phyllis went to see catching fire. The new hunger games movie. Phyllis paid for everyone and we bought popcorn. It was a great movie.

Friday was a relax day. We all slept on bit when we awoke Stephen had breakfast ready then we all opened presents. It was so much fun watching everyone with their gifts. Gma isn't doing well so Cody had to help her. After presents the boys went outside to fix a barbed wire fence that was broke per Kay. Later that afternoon we called the boys back because Gma needed go to the hospital because she could barely breath. Phyllis took her to the doctor. Stephen kam and I headed to walmart to get supplies for FTG. We made roll ups lettuce salad with all the fixing and a pasta salad-noodles broc feta cheese tomatoes cucumbers. We notice a bit of water in the basement when ever we did dishes flushed the toliet or took showers

Saturday we got up and couldn't take showers due to the water in the basement so we just wiped down. Cody and Elisa followed us to FTG because Cody had to work Saturday night and Elisa had work. They stayed at FTG for awhile and headed home. FTG was fun! Lots if little babies v had jack Dave and Bernie had Dean and Jen and Tom had adryn. Lots of food and drink at Kelly's house. Where FTG was! Oh we were late for FTG because the boys had to put up a flag pole for Kay that he got in 2005. When we got home from FTG there was about 2 inches of water in the basement. Poor boyfriend was still downstairs so we moved all our stuff upstairs because Sheri and the kids left sometime Saturday.

Sunday Stephen got up early and rented a hotel room so we could take showers. Phyllis went over first so she could go to church. We packed up Kambryes stuff and headed to the hotel for breakfast and showers. After we got clean we headed to east carondelette to see Bev. We visited for hours! About 4 we headed to fairview heights to meet Lindsey to drop off Kambrye. I found a NYE dress at a store call Ross. We dropped her off and headed home. Kevin and Cody met us there. Stephen and I stopped at the house then headed back to the hotel so the boys could sleep in the beds

Monday we got up early and stopped at Walmart and got cleaning supplies. Stephen was an jerk this whole trip- Even Sheri asked what was wrong with him!? By the time we got to the house the plumber had been here and unplugged the drains. All day Monday Cody Stephen and I clean out the basement. We pulled all the wet boxes out of the basement and sucked up all the excess crap. We bleached the floors and after it dried we pine saled them. Phyllis had left Monday morning to find a nursing home for Gma. She found an awesome one! After the basement was dry we put all the bins back in. Cody and Stephen did some burning. About 4:30 Cody wanted to go see Thor so we changed our clothes and headed out-the 4 of us. The movie was great after the movie we went to a steak house for dinner. It was so good to spend time with Cody and Phyllis. After the movie we went home and I packed our bags so we could leave early in the morning.

Tues we got up early so we could stop by and see Gma before we left. Cody got up really early because he had to work. Phyllis Stephen and I stopped to see Gma and she looked horrible. She can't take her breathing mask off to eat. Now it's been 5 days since she has eaten or drank anything. Lots of tears flowed that morning. We talked to the doctor and basically there is nothing they can do. She went in for a chest scan to see if she had blood clots. Stephen and I made arrangement to stay until Saturday. Phyllis spent the morning calling family. I got to sit and hold Gmas hand. She actually was awake and would talk to us. We left for lunch because Gma had other visitors. We went to steak and shake for lunch. Cody and Elisa met us. After lunch Stephen and I dropped mom off and we headed back got the house because we had boyfriend in the car. We took Kay his lunch dropped off boyfriend and headed back to the hospital. Gma never talked to us again that day. We stayed until about 5 and stopped by Walmart to get supplies to make spaghetti for dinner. It was a good dinner! About 8pm Cody left to spend the night with Gma. He's such a good kid! We had a great conversations while we washed dishes! I finally got to talk to my mother and let her know what was going on. It sucks having no internet and no cell service at Phyllis house!

Wednesday Stephen got up early and headed to the hospital. He took Cody breakfast and stayed with Gma for a bit. I woke up sick. Didn't sleep the night before due to sneezing and a runny nose. Got up and got In the shower and spent the day at the hospital. Phyllis and aunt Jane notified the family that Gma was not well. A lot of family visited this day. For lunch Stephen and I went and pick up jack in the box for everyone. Later that night it was decided we would take the bipap machine off of Gma. She still had not eaten or drank anything. This machine was forcing her to breath. She still responded to everyone that visited. For dinner Lindsay Jess Cody Stephen and I went I Applebee's. We brought back food for Phyllis and Jane. At 7:30 we took Gmas mask off. The doctor said it could be hours or days. After we took the mask off she never responded to us again. We all sat around her hospital bed until about 10 pm and told Gma stories. Lindsay left and stayed at Phyllis house with us. Phyllis a Jan stayed the night with Gma. About 12:05 am thurs morning Gma stopped breathing. The nurse was there with the lady's and said Gma went peaceful with the help of a sedative.

Thurs Stephen and mom got up and headed the funeral home (almost 2 hours away) to get things all set for Gma. It started to snow and snowed and snowed. By the time Stephen and Phyllis got back we had 10 inches of snow that covered sheets of ice from the rain the night before. I went through Gmas room and Phyllis boxes to find pictures to present at Gmas visitation. Cody went home because he had to work. I went to the store and got stuff for spaghetti. The 4 of us had a nice dinner. Stephen also finished paperwork so Kevin could make it back on bereavement leave.

Friday we got to sleep in. Since we were basically snowed in Phyllis went through the pictures and Stephen and I posted them on boards to be displayed. Stephen and I went I to town and got shovels, scrapers and salt for the snow and ice. We needed to go to jcpennys to find dress clothes. Well almost everything was closed due to the snow. We went to lowes and got our snow supplies then headed to Walmart and got pizza for lunch and taco fixing for dinner. We watched movies most of the night after hours of shoveling. We also made a list of food items we needed for the weekend.

Saturday Phyllis and I got up early and headed off to St. Louis for a musical show called a Christmas carol. We left and picked up jan from her house in the middle of now where. She had to take a 4 wheeler to the main road so we could pick her up. Once we got her we headed to Jess house where Christina was meeting us with her son. We all piled into one car and headed to lunch then to the Fox. Lunch was at a pub down the street from the fox. The fox looked like a palace. It was beautiful! The show was fabulous. We sat in the 5 row behind the orchestra. After the show we headed home. We didn't get home until 8 pm. Stephen ran all day and got all the food we needed his hair cut and an outfit for the funeral. Kevin arrived about 1am.

Sunday we all slept in a bit. Cody Elisa got to the house about 11am I cooked eggs bacon bagels toast and cinnamon rolls. I packed a cooler full of beverages and a basket full of chips and snacks. We all left for the funeral home about 12:30. Gmas visitation was 3-5. Of course Stephen Cody and I wear jeans and no one else did. Stephen was such a grump about it because his mom said we should wear jeans. It was so nice to see everyone because the roads were still horrible from the snow storm. After the visitation we all went back to the house and ate-I made wennies cheese dip veggies ect. Jan and her family went out to eat. After dinner Cody Elisa Kevin Stephen and I headed to sticks and steins..a bar with pool table. Lindsay mike and crystal met us there. We had a blast drinking tons shooting pool and playing shuffle board. Lindsay pissed her sister and Elisa off because she was drunk. Cody drove us all home.

Monday I got up at 5 am because I couldn't sleep. Wasn't feeling well but got up and made homemade biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Stephen ironed his short and pants for the funeral. He argued with me about wearing a nice shirt and tie. Well I think he finally got the hint when all the kids came in full suits. We all got ready ate breakfast and headed back to the funeral home. Josh came to the house and ride with us. Brad met us at the funeral home. The service was nice. Cody read a poem I found in Gmas stuff titled remember me god. After the service we trekked to the cemetery and buried gma. We had gotten 12 long stem yellow roses so the family could put them on her coffin. The family said its good byes and the Courter gang headed to lunch. It was so nice to see Kay out of the house...he isn't doing to well either. His breathing is really bad. He can only walk a few steps before he has to rest and catch his breath. After lunch we headed home. The kids had to leave and Stephen and I packed for our two day trip home. Kevin C. also was leaving the next day.

Tuesday we got up and headed for home. No problems with the two day drive. Weather was good and traffic was ok! We got home in time for robots on Wednesday. Stephen went and I stayed home and unpacked.

So glad we got to see the people we did but sure do miss the people we didn't get to see! Gma, we miss you and hope you are watching us from above!