Jeff and Kari: January

It only took a year for the dogs to be BFFs

Well, our New Year's blog resolution has stood up about as well as our other resolutions.

Let's catch-up--shall we?

Well, Jeff's last living grandparent passed on 1/11/11. And one day later our youngest living child turned 6--time goes by so quickly.

Having missed his grandfather's funeral last summer due to Jake's finger surgery, he felt like he should pay tribute this time around. So, Jeff flew back to Utah for a quick visit for the 2nd time in 3 weeks. He enjoyed the quick trip seeing all the extended family--despite the circumstances. Jeff related at the funeral that his fondest memory was spending his Thanksgiving's away at college with Grandpa and Grandma Johnson. But perhaps an even better memory were those childhood memories of picking raspberries in her backyard or building a dam in their creek with his siblings in near zero snowmelt. Grandma Johnson will be missed.

The Kent Johnson girls

The Dee Johnson crew

Graveside Dedication

Unfortunately, the funeral and Rachel's birthday party were the same days. Which meant that Jeff missed a flurry of 12+ six year olds tearing up the house (we know he was heartbroken). You know the neat thing about Rachel--she doesn't mind having a birthday so close to Christmas. Despite racking up plenty of presents two weeks earlier, she took it in stride, and forced herself to tear open a dozen more. Jeff's most favorite recent memory of Rachel was having her curled up on his lap while watching the movie "Ratatoiulle" (does it bother anyone else that the entire movie is about cooking rodents?).

A portion of the monster burger that led to Jeff's illness during his stay in Utah

Rachel blowing out 6 candles

What else? Snowstorms a plenty. Sulphur Springs got hit with record hitting snow a couple weeks back--more than 6" in a single day. Not to be outdone,. we got another batch this last week. We think Kari may have had something to do with the last snow dump. Kari was asked to speak in our local Stake Conference to take place in Gilmer, TX (over an hour away). She spent several late nights preparing her talk. Two days prior to the event the snow came. Our little branch was told we could watch a broadcast of the conference at our building, but Kari would still have to come down to deliver her portion. Literally hours before the event, our Branch President made the trek down and declared the roads too unsafe. Kari was called and let off the hook--the only speaker at Stake Conference not to speak. Her topic was the "Scriptures", but apparently it should've been "The Power of Prayer"!