Holiday Celebrations

Thank you for your patience on this recent blog post. The Holidays were filled with so many wonderful events and memories! We started our celebration with a fun Christmas program at school

Decorated a lovely Christmas tree that we ordered from Taobao. Scored this baby for $2.50 USD

 Baked some yummy sugar cookies!

Rachel made this adorable nativity out of clay! She's so artistic.

We had a Christmas market to make crafts and raise money for charity!

She's so creative she can make a Christmas star with her eyes closed.

 Then we had a great time at the Xianease sponsored red carpet Christmas party.

One of our Year 10 students, getting ready to rock their band performance!

Rachel enjoys her Chinese class so much she had to get a picture with her teacher Celia to my left, plus my sweet friend Snowy teaches math and of course no 9th grader can resist photobombing.

Lovely ladies! Sharon who keeps the secondary school running, Karen provides specialized instruction in the Primary, Ronna teaching reading skills and Snowy again.

Kennedy and his sons Collins & Levi with Korai in the middle. Kennedy teaches technology and design and Collin and Korai are Diploma students and Levi is in primary.

Michelle got her hair done for the occasion. She keeps the main office together.

Michelle, Ronna and I

Gorge and Marietta. I love my Colombian comrades. 

They both teach primary and are wonderful friends

This year we also got to surprise my family and go home for Christmas. 

We left on December 14th and flew in to Spokane Washington. We spent a week in Moscow with Tony and then drove down to Blackfoot so surprise the family.

Leaving Xi'an

Freshened up in Seattle and grabbed some Wendy's. Even treated a couple of returning missionaries by buying their lunch. First taste of America was a delicious baconator!

Beautiful Washington state!

Best picture of the trip. Tony carrying the doll and holding Rachel's hand at baggage claim.

True love!

Let it Snow!

Beautiful Idaho winter!

Enjoying an excellent burger with a law school friend. David!

At the end of the week we drove over to Coeur d'Alene to surprise Aunt Ang!
Little did we know she was going to surprise us with some exciting news!

Stuffed our faces with BBQ!

Relaxing and watching Die Hard- A Carlson family tradition!

Finally we were on the road home, first stop grandmas!

This is how we roll.

Incredible drive down from north Idaho!

And the fun begins.

My cell phone video skills need improvement but the feelings are wonderful.

Surprising everyone was so much fun. We had a wonderful holiday!

Sofi and Conan

Took miss P. to church.

Sweet friends like Lynette

The girls!

My littles!

Connor

Piper

Sawyer

And a lovely overnight getaway with my love to Jackson Hole

All in all, it was an incredible trip where we made wonderful memories.
After a month back in Xi'an I already miss the snow but check out the fun we had for Chinese New Year!