Grammy B's Blog

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

My Santa Stud

I am going to pay dearly for this post.

This Summer my nephew ran in the "Spudman Triathalon" in Burley, Idaho. His wife titled the blog about it as "My Spud Stud". When Dave played Santa for the Griffiths family Christmas party I thought I should make a post about it and call it "My Santa Stud". Sorry to steal your idea Megan.

OK, now that you have fallen off your seats from laughter I will continue.

Dave says he wants to leave this life with anonymity, meaning he doesn't want to be on any blog or facebook page. He has even taped over his web cam on his laptop. Well, he has a lot of years of technology driven life ahead of him so I just don't see that happening. I thought I might as well get him started on the path to Internet stardom with his debut as Santa.

I thought he made a pretty good Santa, his cheeks were not quite rosy enough, and he was missing a cherry nose, an of course no pipe. But other than that he fit the Night Before Christmas Santa quite well. He really could have used some suspenders so his pants didn't fall down. We will have to work on that for next year. I don't think anyone heard the story about the hole in the toe of his boot. It was from burning it when he landed in a hot fireplace. And same thing with the patch on the seat of his pants!

Secretly I think he enjoyed it. He was pretty good with the kids, the "too big for Santa ones", the ones trying to pull off his beard, the one with the bottle, the crying one, and the ones that would not say a word! And he even danced, but no Santa Cat!

Thanks Chris for coming up with the outfit. I think the kids really liked having a visitor from the North Pole. Hopefully this will become a renewed tradition at the family party.

Anyway, I guess when you get to be our age and are as out of shape as we are being married to a Santa Stud is a pretty good thing! I wouldn't trade him for anything!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Twilight

Here is a very late movie review. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving Becca, Millie, and I went to Twilight. Yes, I have read all the books. My verdict . . . I really liked it. I went with very low expectations, I had heard a lot of negative about the movie. Maybe that is why it surpassed my expectations.
What I didn't like- Bella's prom dress and especially the lack of heels; Alice's lack of shopping or primping Bella scenes; Bella not being shown as the klutz she is; and no shinning, whiter than white, straight, perfect teeth on Edward.
What I liked- Dr. Cullen (I may be an old lady but he was hot!); Jasper; the casting for Alice and Rosalie; the baseball scene; Forks High School; and the Cullen's cars.
I know there was some other stuff but I waited too long to write this. The funniest part of the movie was the 4 teenage girls in front of us that were giggling and ahhhhing during every Edward/Bella scene.

The Great Dalmuti

One of our favorite things to do when we have a lot of people is play The Great Dalmuti. We played it at a friend's house about 10 years ago with playing cards. They said you could buy the cards and I searched for a long time for them. I finally found them in a game store in Salt Lake. (They are quite easy to find these days) The idea of the game is to be the Great Dalmuti. When you are the Great Dalmuti you get the privileges of being the best player- the Peon has to give you their 2 best cards, you are the first to play, the Peon has to deal the cards and clear the piles after each round. The best part though is the props. You can use a variety of props but the idea is that the Great Dalmuti has the best prop and the Peon has the worst prop. We have used chairs- the Great Dalmuti gets the recliner, the Peon sits on the floor. We used to use Mardi gras beads. Then we went to hats, just random hats around the house. But now I have my grandmother's old hats so we use them mixed in with some other funny hats we have. The funniest part of the hats is when the guys wear a ladies hat from the 40's or a pioneer bonnet! Enough said. . .

The sillier you look the better

Even Grandma Great got in on the game

Ellie doesn't get the game but loves to wear a weird hat

This hat is so Becca!

Mindy and April moving up to be the Great Dalmuti

Last the best of all the game. . . Steven and Will

What good sports they are!

Thanksgiving

My family has been on my case to get the Thanksgiving picture up so here I am again, trying to catch up. I have about 5 or 6 posts to do so keep checking back!
We had a really fun Thanksgiving! Millie came home the Friday before Thanksgiving,Mindy and the kids came on Monday, Becca and Steven came on Tuesday, Garry came Wednesday, and April is just always close. It was so nice to have the family together but we really missed Caleb and Noni. Everyone pitched in to make a great dinner. I couldn't have done it without Mindy's talent with the turkey. We played games. Dave and Camille babysat the kids so the rest of us could go to the Temple on Friday, then we all met at one of our favorite places for lunch, Craigo's. Anyone who has gone to BYU-I/Ricks is probably familiar with Craigo's, now there is one in Idaho Falls. We made our traditional Christmas chocolate advents. We all had plenty of turns holding Stockton and Logan. And I prepared to give a talk on Sunday (ok that was kind of a downer). It was sad to send everyone on their way home. I started the last batch of "crowd" dishes on Sunday night right as we were leaving for a viewing. When Dave walked back into the kitchen there was water everywhere. Our poor dishwasher, that we have been babying for years, finally gave in to its ailments and sprung a permanent leak. At least it lasted through the holiday! I guess those coming home for Christmas will get the privilege of washing dishes by hand.

Dave, Ellie and Garry

Take a look at that spread!

Garry and MindyApril and CamilleRebecca and Steven

One of our Thanksgiving traditions. . .Martinelli's

Logan and Stockton joined us off to the side

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Griffiths Family Christmas Party

The Griffiths family Christmas party is always a highlight of the year. This year was no exception. We had it at Floyd and Alison's home in Cove. There was yummy food, the traditional "program", a fun white elephant gift exchange, and a visit from the man from up North, yes, Santa Clause (aka Uncle Dave- if his figure doesn't fit the mold he is the farthest North in attendance). We are starting on the next generation (the great grandchildren) for the program and it is a little rocky, a lot of them are still kind of young to get the idea of performing. But we had a great showing- Floyd and Coleman did a great guitar/singing number, Katey played the piano, Caleb and Noni sang, and Candace and Jared read us a story. I think I missed the rest as I was helping Santa. If I counted right there were 43 there- Grandma & Grandpa, the 4 siblings and their spouses, 19 grandchildren (including spouses), and 14 great grandchildren. I think the sad part is that so many of the grandkids live out of the area and are not able to come. We miss you all!
Thank you to all who brought food or helped in anyway. Especially thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for being the reason we all get together and for the cards and treat bags (I believe with the help of Christine). Hope to see you all again next year and maybe even more of you!
I panicked that I missed one of the kids sitting on Santa's lap, I counted 14 greats there and only had 13 pictures, then I realized Jackson was over 12. We really should have had him and Jed sitting on Santa's lap too! I also missed a picture of Candace with Santa getting the bag for her "angel". Sorry!