Just News from Joan: January 2011

Bill has made remarkable progress since his knee replacement surgery on the 3rd! He's been blessed with rapid healing and rehabilitation and, as you can tell from the pictures, he was not home-bound for long.

We celebrated the 66th (!) birthday of our friend Dick with our traditional dinner out - complete with prayers, toasts, and a shared dessert. It's hard to beat an evening out with our dearest and best!

Laura and Amelia have a year's pass to Disneyland. They made their first visit there two weeks ago - we're eager to go there with them soon :)

An Internet visit with our Pasadena family - Amelia is such a happy girl!

Lunch with Sarah and her precious boys is always great!
Think she's a busy mom?

We love spending time with John & Jo, which always includes
a little boasting about the family that we share :)

Tom & Anna's kids all enjoy basketball clinics on Saturdays. Bill went to watch Noah, but I had the camera and snapped a few pics of the girls....

Abby

Sophie

Sophie at brunch

Tori got the bow she was hoping for at Christmas :)

May you wear out your boots
going to fun places with wonderful people!

You'll need some time if you're going to look at all the pictures in this post! It's been a month since I've updated (the date at the top is when I first began this post!) and some grumblings are beginning to come my way. So - sit back and review our last several weeks of Christmas parties, birthday celebrations, and various other events.

Going in reverse.....Bill had knee replacement surgery on January 3. He is doing really well and his physical therapists say he's ahead of expectations! We're thankful! The picture will give you a good idea why he needed the surgery. The view on the left was taken the night before surgery and the view on the right was taken in the hospital on Wednesday. His left knee will be replaced on March 21.

Our Christmas season was wonderful! We received the GREAT news that Laura and Ben are expecting baby # 2! Amelia 'told' us by showing us her shirt :)

Can you tell we're excited?!?

Amelia listens for the baby :)

We spent some precious time with all of our 'kids' at dinner - couldn't have been better!

Laura and Anna

Tori and Abby, Sophie, and Noah came for an overnighter at our house. We went to see a live nativity and enjoyed hot chocolate at the church before seeing the Christlights here in good ol' Byron. On Saturday, Grandpa insisted we have sweet cinnamon rolls for breakfast, McFlurries for a morning snack, and Elephant Ears in the afternoon :) We had such fun!!

The Christmas chapel at Byron Christian was full of joy! Tori is near the front of the group in this video so you can't see her, but I loved the singing!

Christmas time is always special because we have lots of time with Laura & Ben and Amelia. Our celebrations included birthday parties for Tom (37), Ben (34), and Amelia (2) as well as visits from some very special friends.

We spent Christmas Eve at Tom & Anna's for a delicious Raclette dinner, the kids' Christmas program at church, and watching the kids open their gifts of 'gold, frankincense, and myrrh'.

We couldn't have had more fun at our family Christmas party!! Everyone cooperated with the silly games and won some nice prizes in Bingo :)

Noah won a Bingo game and chose a gift certificate
to his favorite restaurant - 84 East.
He treated his family and us to dinner! This is a picture of him paying the bill :)

Bill's sister Barb got married and we were blessed to witness the private ceremony.