Merry (LATE) Christmas!!

Well Christmas is over already; although it seems as if it came very early this year. I was not prepared for the Christmas season to come as it was, but now it is already over. We finished decorating our tree on Christmas morning! Usually it's decorated a month before Christmas! Well on Christmas Eve we headed over to my grandparents house, which for us was a huge suprise. Although my grandparents live close to us, we don't get to go over with the whole family very often. My grandpa has now had 16 or 17 strokes. He is still pressing on ward though. Before he had had his 12th or 13th stroke he would go outside everyday and pick some roses for my grandma and bring them inside to her. But he was still very often confused and very frustrated because he is incapable of speaking. Now that he is home from the hospital his energy was increasing and we all could see great improvement in him. But now he seems worse than the days when he was in the hospital. Anyways just a little update there. Well we got there, of course late, we can't ruin our name ("The Late Leavells'') But it was for a good reason that time. Well we all gathered in the family room and started with singing a few Christmas songs, then Angela and I both played two Christmas songs on the violin. Then my Uncle Monte read a story he had written for the occassion, which was a very interesting story. He talked about his memories and how thier family was when they still lived in Cody, Wyoming. It was really good to hear. My grandma then read the Christmas story out of Luke. Next we opened presents, and found out that to my suprise, my grandparents had bought Angela and I a laptop to share. It's amazing! After presents we all gathered in the kitchen and ate our amazingly awesome Christmas Eve dinner. Sloppy Joes! Haha :) And all the credit for that goes to my Aunt Jeanne! After dinner we got together in the family room again and just talked and talked untill it got really late then we all headed home. We got home on Christmas Eve night and headed to bed. The next morning, Christmas morning, we, as in Angela, my dad and I, got up and finished cleaning the house so it would be perfect for my mom when she got home from work. Yes, she had to work, on CHRISTMAS!!!! It's crazy! (By the way, just a little tid bit here, our family would really appreatiate if you could all pray for my mom, her job is at great risk of being taken away from her. She has worked at the Idaho State School for the past 17 years and it would be very difficult for her to lose her job.) Well she got home at 3:30ish and headed to her room to finish wrapping the presents. We weren't able to open presents till around 5ish when my Uncle Robert came over. After presents, since we didn't have time to make the ham on Christmas, we made homemade pizza! (We're so traditional aren't we now? ;)) The following day we had our Christmas dinner though. Anyway, it's very very late, but that was my Christmas Eve and my Christmas! It was amazing :) But life is always amazing :)