Merry Christmas Y'all...

...that's what was on some guy's shirt as we exited the Wilmington, NC airport baggage claim. It cracked me up and if I hadn't been so tired, I would have laughed. By the time we reached the beach house where Andy normally stays when he goes to visit Emma, we were sufficiently exhausted. We slept for a few hours and then went to pick up Emma at 3pm so we could spend about 3 hours with her on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, as most 6-year-old kids do, she stayed up late with anticipation and woke up early to find out what Santa brought for her. By the time we picked her up, she was in no mood to do anything. She fell asleep within about 5 minutes of arriving at the beach house and didn't wake up until it was time to go home. Rather than fight fatigue, we postponed our Christmas celebration for the next day.

Wednesday was a lot better. Emma was well rested, cheerful and we were able to celebrate Christmas during the 3 hours we had to spend with her. We read the Christmas story with her and she opened the gifts we had brought from her Aunt, Uncle, Cousins and Grandparents. The main thing she got was an 18-inch doll from Grandma Carol and Grandpa Jon and a trunk to carry it in. She really liked it and she loved the little outfits that Grandma Carol made--one of them even looked like the school uniform that Emma wears. She also dressed up the doll at night so it was ready for bed in its pink pajamas and each morning, she would dress it up so it was ready to play.
We also got her the board game, Mouse Trap--which I remember playing with at Grandma's house, and she loved it. We played with it several times and she got pretty good at setting it up in order.

On Thursday, we spent the bulk of the day at the Wilmington Children's Museum. Emma created colors in the "science lab" and then Andy put on a very entertaining puppet show. He used a variety of animals and was so entertaining that Emma got inspired and she put on her own puppet show with another little girl. It was hilarious!! They also had some new exhibits where the kids could sing karaoke and dance on stage. Emma loves stuff like that. She really enjoys performing and seeing herself on stage.

We then went and saw the movie, Enchanted. Emma enjoyed it. After the movie, Emma got ravenously hungry, so we went to a McDonald's and she got a Happy Meal. On the Happy Meal box, there were instructions on how to do a dance called the Strawberry Shake. In an effort to entertain, (and because I'm convinced that Andy LOVES to embarrass himself--a quality that has entertained me on numerous occasions) Andy announced to the McDonald's workers that his daughter wanted him to perform the Strawberry Shake for them. When he was done, they applauded and then it was Emma's turn to do the Strawberry Shake. The McDonald's employees must have appreciated her performance a lot more because they gave her a free ice cream cone!! Andy got nothing.

We capped off the day by going to Emma's favorite restaurant, Hiro's. It's similar to Benihana. It was very entertaining. The chef makes food in front of you and Emma's favorite is when he turned some onions into a volcano. The food was great and we really enjoyed it.

Emma spent two nights with us at the beach house and we spent most of Friday and Saturday there playing with her toys. We did go to the Aquarium on Friday and the Library on Saturday. It was a lot of fun.
After droping Emma off, we had to hurry back to the beach house, finish packing and get to the airport where we would have missed our flight...if it hadn't been delayed. We did, however, have to reschedule our connecting flight out of Charlotte, but it worked out in the end because we ended up flying into LAX instead of stoping in Phoenix and then Santa Ana. All-in-all, it was a good weekend and it's hard to believe that Christmas is over--even though our Christmas went on for four days.

Pre-Christmas Fun

We spent Sunday evening with Andy's family in Irvine. His sister, Melanie, was in town from Las Vegas and his brother Jonny and his family were there as well. Since we were leaving on Christmas Eve to go visit Andy's daughter in North Carolina, we had to exchange presents early. It was a lot of fun to have Evan and Seth (Andy's nephews) there--kids just make Christmas so much fun. After dinner, we read the Christmas story from Luke and then sang Silent Night. It took a lot of patience for Evan to wait that long to open presents.

Seth--Waiting patiently for Evan to hand out the presents.

Evan--showing off his loot!
The boys got a lot of Disney Cars paraphernalia, a train set and a Mr. Potato Head family. Andy got a UCLA Aloha shirt, power inverter and a broom/vac (which was really a present to me). I got cookie cutters, decorative baskets and Michael Buble CDs.

Andy and I spent Christmas Eve opening the remaining gifts. I had gotten Andy a bunch of UCLA clothes--shirts, a sweater and b-ball shorts. Andy got me a membership to Massage Envy, so I'll have a year's worth of massages. We then packed up and got ready for our flight to NC that night and then we met up with Melanie to play tennis (with my ball machine) and then Andy and Melanie played a little one-on-one basketball. I wish I had taken video of the "match" because I'm pretty sure Andy's primary tactic was to make Melanie laugh so hard that she would miss her shots. No such luck. While Andy's expressions and innovative moves were...impressive, Melanie's ball-handling skills prevailed and she won, 11 to 9.

We then got ready to take the red-eye flight to North Carolina to see Emma.

The Flu

On Friday, about half way through the day, I started to feel really queasy. Andy had come home for lunch, so when I mentioned it to him, he thought maybe I had eaten something strange--but I had eaten the same things he had. Much to my dismay, the queasyness didn't go away. It slowly got worse. Andy and I were planning on going to a marriage class at the Costa Mesa institute. It was a holiday potluck and I figured that we should at least go for a little while. Once we got there, I really wasn't feeling much better and had no appetite to eat anything, so we left early and Andy made me some couscous (it was the only bland thing we had in our cupboard). After eating about a spoonful of couscous, I horked. Andy was a good boy and cleaned up the mess (I mostly made it to the toilet). Almost immediately, my stomach started to feel better, but I also started getting achy all over. I had the flu.

I spent most of Saturday in bed resting. The sad thing was that with Andy's family coming into town, we had arranged to go to the temple that afternoon and then all the Pearson women were to come over to our place for a pre-Christmas estrogen fest. I passed on the temple, but they did end up coming over to our place afterward for a panini and chocolate fondue. Unfortunately, I had no appetite and had to force myself to eat half of a half of a panini. It's no fun to have a party full of good food that you have no appetite to eat. At least we were able to watch BYU beat UCLA in the Las Vegas Pioneer Bowl!! What an amazing ending!!

Fortunately, after getting plenty of sleep I started to feel a lot better...and not a moment too soon because I had to sing in church for our ward Christmas program. The program went well and our choir director is very good about putting together small groups of people to sing. I sang in two groups and although I'm pretty sure I came in a measure early on the song I sang solo (Mary's Lullaby) it went well and I'm glad it's over. Singing can be nerve wracking enough, but when your stomach is still unsettled and you're nervous....I was just wishing it could have been under different circumstances.

Andy and I will be leaving the night of Christmas Eve to go see Emma in North Carolina. It should be a lot of fun. We'll get there Christmas morning and will leave on Saturday afternoon. We will be celebrating Christmas a little early so we don't have to pack everything across the country. I hope you all had a much better weekend than I did and that you will have a wonderful Christmas!!

School

I registered for school today. You're probably thinking, I didn't know Jamie was going back to school?!?!? Well, yes, but not really. I've registered for a Saturday Ceramics class at Golden West Community College. I enjoy doing ceramics and it's really cheap to take classes at a community college--only about $100 for 16 weeks. Not too shabby. Andy and I are going to watch for a Saturday Golf class that we can take this summer once he's done with UCLA.

So, if you are in need of a pencil holder or toothbrush holder or ceramic bowl or a plate or ANYTHING, put in your orders now!!! I don't intend on keeping everything I make because a household can only have so many toothbrush holders--if ya know what I mean.

The class doesn't start until February, but if you want anything, let me know now so I can plan accordingly.

Christmas Parties

Andy and I both had our work Christmas parties yesterday. Since Andy works in the housing industry and since his company has laid off about 1/3 of its employees over the last year, his Christmas party was scaled way back from its normal grandiose affair. They usually rent out the ballroom of a hotel in the area and have dinner, a professional photographer on hand and entertainment (like Cirqe de Soleil or something). They also invite all the spouses and it's not uncommon to see a whole lot of bling, booze and evening gowns. Because of the cutbacks, they had a mid-day lunch and it was for employees only. I'm not complaining. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

For PIN, we had talked about what we wanted to do for a Christmas Party on Monday and ideas were tossed around. I suggested that they all come up to Orange County to attend the Orange County Mormon Choral (OCMC) performance. They all agreed and we arranged to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and then to go to the OCMC performance. The OCMC was started this last year by some relatively young brothers (probably about my age) and their objective is to encourage members of the community to seek out uplifting music. I was VERY impressed with the performance. They had several different choirs; the Sunbeam Choir, a children's choir, a youth choir (or two), a women's choir and and adult choir. Some of the songs were accompanied by a small orchestra--which was quite impressive. The kids were mostly cute and their performances sounded more like a recital, but the adult choir was really good! They could have recorded an album for some of the songs they did. I really enjoyed the performance and am contemplating joining next year. Andy, who didn't want to go when I mentioned it to him on Sunday (especially considering he'd have to pay $16+ per ticket) actually enjoyed the performance and was glad he went after all. He even said that if I joined the choir next year, he would come listen to me sing. For now, I'll stick with singing a solo or two in our ward choir.

Our Christmas Tree

Andy and I got our first Christmas tree last Monday. We live across the street from a hardware store and had gone over last Saturday to check out prices, sizes and the quality of the trees. Fortunately, the prices were great. Unfortunately, the trees had been there since Thanksgiving and were getting dry. However, we found out that there would be a new shipment of trees coming in the next Monday. So we waited all weekend for a fresh tree.

After work, we rushed over to the hardware store and, sure enough, there were a bunch of trees still wrapped up and on the palates. Since we were in a hurry, we picked one out, asked the guy how much it was and when he said it was $26.00, we bought it and carried it home. It's about 6'7". We set it up and unwrapped it and let the branches spread out overnight and we were very pleased to discover that we had picked a wonderfully shaped tree after all. The needles are in pretty good shape and it smells great. I had gotten a bunch of decorations at post-Christmas sales last year. I didn't find a tree topper that I liked, so the Santa hat was the best I could do. So here's a picture of our decorated tree. Enjoy!

School and Work

Just some quick updates as to what's going on in our lives. Andy had a final presentation yesterday for the "GAP" program at school. For about the last 6 months, he's been working on a business plan for a company (SEPA) located in Italy. Their presentation was yesterday and prior to coming to UCLA for the presentation, one of the executives at SEPA traveled to China and he was able to use some of the ideas Andy's group had come up with. So it went well and we're all glad it's over. It was a very time-consuming project.

In other news, I worked out a profit-sharing plan with my employers this week. So hopefully that will translate into increased earning potential for me. Of course the best news is that they are pleased with my work and I can continue to work from home.

BYU Football

Last Saturday, we went to the BYU vs. SDSU football game. Originally, the game was supposed to be in October, but due to the fires in San Diego, the game was postponed to December 1st. We were thrilled to be able to have gone to the BYU vs. Utah the week before and then to go to the game in San Diego. (It's likely we won't make it to ANY games next year, so we've got to take advantage of the schedule when we can.)

We had arranged to have a tailgate party with Andy's brother and his wife and his cousin and his wife. We arrived at the stadium with plenty of time to eat. I should also add that the bleu cheese burgers were EXCELLENT. Here's a picture of Andy playing football in the parking lot before the game. In California, we RARELY get any rain, but it just so happened that the day before it rained almost the whole day and then on Saturday there were scattered showers as well. I'm not complaining because California REALLY needs the rain. Part of the reason the wildfires were so devastating is that the landscape is soooo dry. So I was grateful for the rain, but it made for a VERY cold afternoon. In fact, Andy and I agreed that it was colder at the San Diego game than it was at the game the week before in Utah.

We had to get up during half time to walk around in order to try and warm ourselves up. Here's a picture of Andy dancing on the mezzanine to stay warm. Look out Cougarettes, Andy's got jazz hands!!

Anyway, we had a wonderful time and were very pleased that BYU won and has had such a great season!! Go Cougs!!

Shock and Awe

I am married to a guy who absolutely LOVES to surprise me. I'm pretty sure he gets more joy out of it than anything else. Aside from being surprised on our anniversary or with all the fun activities he had planned on our honeymoon, there are plenty of other times when he gets all excited by surprising me. Case in point; last night, our ward had its annual Relief Society Christmas Dinner. Andy had asked me the day before what time it started and casually mentioned that he'd probably end up staying late at work and would get something to eat on his own. I thought, no problem.

True to RS fashion, the cultural hall was well decorated and the food was being served by members of the Elder's Quorum. So I''m sitting at the dinner table enjoying my salad and someone leans over to me and says, "So how did Andy get roped into this?" Totally and completely baffled, I say, "What are you talking about?" They point across the room and there's Andy....serving dinner salads and filling glasses of water and, I'm sure, reveling in the fact that his wife is clueless as to his whereabouts.

I still can't understand why he felt the need to take a RS Christmas dinner party to surprise me, but suffice it to say, I've gotta stay on my toes around him!!