Christmas in California

I know it's silly to just now be posting about Christmas

but

this year the holidays were different

Not only did I lose my totally awesome grandpa but Jake lost his job

All of this was (and still is) temporary of course. Little did/do we know

So, we spent Thanksgiving in ID with Jake's family

and the plan was to spend Christmas in CA with my family; However

since we went home for "the party" the beginning of December

 I decided it was best we didn't go back to CA just a few weeks later for Christmas, but we did.

I felt like we really needed to be there, even with Jake losing his job the same week we lost g'pa.

I just didn't think the family needed another face missing. So we went back

and it was warm :)

We surprised my mom and boy oh boy was she surprised. Mission complete

We left early Saturday morning and drove to my parents house

My sister was in the hospital, for kidney stones, so we didn't get to see her 'til later that day.

Sunday we went to church and enjoyed a beautiful Christmas program, put on by the bishopric (my dad) and the ward choir (my mom). 

It was so nice be home and see family friends :)

After church, we drove to the east side of town to see my best friend (Kellie) and her family.

Kellie lives in LA, so I was excited that she came to Bakersfield for the Christmas weekend :)

After a delicious family dinner, we did our traditional Christmas light drive in Hagan Oaks.

It's always nice seeing what people have in their yards :)

Christmas this year was a little different. We were missing a few faces.

My aunt made a beautiful ornament in memory of our favorite person.

And here is g'ma hanging her ornament on the tree

Everything this year was covered in sparkles. Looks at those hands!

Smith family tradition. Bah-hum Bug trucker hats

My cousin sent us these hats (to CA from Logan, UT) in memory of g'pa.

We all got one and took a family photo

PS- we were supposed to take family photos this year for Christmas ;(

Here's how the family photo turned out 

The Albert's

or some of them

Kelsey was still sick with kidney stones

She went everywhere we did. Just not all that well

Tyler was with Carlie's family

and this is what we ended up with on Christmas day

Like mother like daughter. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree

After taking pictures, I drove down the street to see a childhood friend.

Erin

AKA- Ariel

I've known Erin (Ariel) and her family, since I was four years old.

It's always good seeing the Gentile's

I'm getting better about this whole blogging thing. I didn't know I had "readers" or "followers" until some started pestering me to post more. So here I am world. I don't have Facebook anymore, so for those of you who are Instagram, you can follow me on there (piece_of_scrap) or keep up w/my blog. Hopefully we can keep up together!