After Christmas day we had two and a half more days filled with full family fun before our Western kids made the trek across the state and over a major mountain pass home.

Thursday morning after Christmas day we had our traditional Swedish Pancake breakfast with little smokies. Greg is the cook for this meal and we appreciate his efforts!

It’s a nice casual morning for the rest of us. After breakfast the party shifted to Bayles Mountain for the rest of the day and evening. Usually there would be sledding involved on this day but for 2024 we didn’t get a white Christmas.

Many new ‘toys’ were enjoyed by everyone.

Hardy Boys books are the current favorites.

Gramps and Baba left for home before it was time for Some-mores.

On Friday we all met for lunch at the new Mexican Restaurant in town. Friday was Katie’s birthday so in the afternoon Greg made his famous Tomato Rice Soup for dinner and I baked a cake. Jamie baked three different loaves of Sourdough bread to enjoy with the soup, plain, rosemary garlic, and siracha!

This year the cake was a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon frosting.

After dinner and cake a new game was played that had us roaring with laughter during some key moments!

Some teams of players were involved.

It was a full rich day and everyone retired with plans to meet up for one more hoorah before travelers headed home on Saturday morning and afternoon.

Hope you all had a good New Year’s Day. We laid low and watched the parade, some games and had some long distance conversations with family.