Christmas, 2006

Christmas has come and gone...and what a wonderful Christmas it was! We all flew to Texas and spent the holidays between Saddie's and The Farm.

Gabe and I have had multiple conversations about how blessed we are to have the family we do. I'm sure others feel that way about their families (at least I hope they do), but we have the greatest family! I love having everyone together...hanging out...playing games...doing 'projects'...just being together. You've heard of the old expression of 'wall to wall carpet'...well, we had wall to wall people. At Saddies, there were 10 of us sleeping and at the farm, we had 17 one night and 15 the other nights. Was it crowded? Yes...but oh how much fun it was!
This is my side of the family.
In Dallas at my mom's, we spent a lot of time at JOHN DAVID's house...he sometimes forgets the NAME I HAVE CALLED HIM FROM BIRTH...I have NEVER called him just JOHN.

With my side of the family, we play a LOT of games. Donnie is usually the MASTER OF CEREMONIES in the new game category. JOHN DAVID is the MASTER when it comes to making sure everyone is having a good time! Donnie taught us MAFIA and IDENTITY. We also played charades, Taboo, Apples to Apples...probably there's more. Here we are playing charades. JOHN DAVID was SO happy the guys won, that he planted a big ole kiss on Ron!




Playing taboo was a lot of fun. I'll be posting about the "Johnston Weight Loss Challenge" which is the dreamchild of Gabe...but you'll hear it referred to in this video:

Gabe's turn...attempting to get the guys to guess his word.

We had to use the box tops from other games to prevent those WANDERING EYES from seeing the answers.

Here are some family group photos:
Judy (me), Mom, John David.........John David, Sami, Addison, Becky

Donnie and Lindsey................................Gabe, Emily, and Biscuit

Erica, Joshua, and Thalia..........................Thalia and Biscuit

Kasi and Addison.............................Sami and Addison

Biscuit models her Woolrich outfit...Gabe holds Biscuit while he makes his "Biscuit Face."


The other half of our time was spent at the farm. Larry's family was there too so we definitely had a houseful and lots of fun. Dave came for a little while with Grant and Reid. Travis also came one night. We took a photo, but not everyone was there.This is Ron's side of the the family.

Mike and Brenda were only there one night when we were also there. They live in Denver and had to get back. Mike and Gabe have become good buddies...well, I'm not sure if someone who serves you a five year old beer would be considered a buddy, but they have fun together anyway.
Gabe and Mike..................................Brenda and Mike

On Christmas Eve, we had a partial Christmas. Erica and Thalia weren't there...they didn't fly in until Dec. 26th. Dave was there with his boys, but Brenda and Mike weren't in yet. Jo cooked her absolutely delicious Christmas Eve dinner and Ron did his job carving the turkey. We had two turkeys....both deep fried. This deep-frying was done in the pole barn.
Donnie, Sid, Dave, Larry, Ron, Gabe, & Joshua work together to cook the turkey!
Grant and Reid.......Ron carves, Josh eats, and Grant peeks in!
Jo's a great cook......Here the family is starting to fill their plates for our Christmas Eve dinner.

After dinner, we opened some presents. This year was different since we weren't all together at the same time. For the Christmas Eve gift opening, we were minus Erica, Thalia, Brenda, Mike, and Sandy. We enjoyed our time, but it wasn't the same with so many missing. We're flexible...so we just had another celebration once Erica, Thalia, Brenda and Mike arrived. Now Grandpa might have learned a lesson...he apparently told a lot of people that he wanted a hammer for Christmas...and he ended up with not 1...not 2...but 3 hammers!
So here's some more family photos:
Ron, Larry, and Dave..................Gabrial, Emily, Donnie, Lindsey

Joshua, Erica, Thalia........................Sandra and Larry

Lissette and Biscuit........................Judy and Sandra


Now, of course, when you're on the farm you should do farm things. If you ask Thalia about her time on the farm, I'm SURE she would tell you about driving the GOLF CART. You may be thinking that a golf cart and a farm don't necessarily go together. Well, they do if you're on Grandpa's farm. The one and only Lissette transformed Grandpa's average golf cart into a TEXAS FARM GOLF CART...yep, she did. Thalia became a master at driving it...after I almost had a heart attack as I heard Larry drawl out, "Hey Thalia, don't run into the trees." (Notice there's no exclamation mark..that's because when Larry draws it out, it's pretty even tempered...not too much excitement.)

You may notice some of Thalia's 'passengers.' The farm has no shortage of dogs. Grammy and Grandpa 'adopted' Cocoa...and Sam and Maggie pretty much hang out at the farm with Cocoa. Thalia loved them all. Biscuit isn't exactly what I'd call a FARM DOG. I kept her in my arms when we had her outside if the BIG dogs were around.

The TEXAS GOLF CART is perfect for hauling tools and Grandpa around the farm. I think we all enjoy it. Erica tried her hand at farm life by driving the tractor. I don't think she did any official tractor work...but maybe next time!