Santa Gives His Own

This is a story that Grandma Call wrote for a Christmas booklet that Debbie Packer was putting together. Grandma thought it might be fun to post it on the blog.

Santa Gives His Own

By Dorma Call

Mr. and Mrs. Andersen were the perfect couple to play Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and they thoroughly enjoyed acting the part. So every year on Christmas Eve, they would dress up like the jolly, happy people that they were and play Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus to some of the members of their Pocatello ward. This project always brought great joy and satisfaction to the couple and they did it until they could no longer get around to do it. They loved sharing the Christmas Spirit with others in this special way.

One year, just after dark on Christmas Eve, Gerald and Dorma Call had just gathered their children in the living room for a special evening together. As they looked upon their small children their hearts swelled with love for them. How dear and precious each child was to them, just as each is precious to Heavenly Father. Their eight children were such good boys and girls. How blessed they were to be the parents of such loving and kind children. Each of their children was excited for Christmas too. Dorma and Gerald hoped that they had taught each child the real meaning of Christmas, even though the commercialism was a part of the celebration too.

There was a knock on the door and the twins, James and JoAnn jumped up together and ran for the door. When they opened the door they were excited to see Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus were invited into the warmth of the Call home and Santa Claus pulled out a really nice gift for each of the Call children. Evelyn and Connie were old enough to know about Santa Claus but were still as excited as the smaller children. Dorma and Gerald enjoyed the children's excitement. Their eyes twinkled as they secretly shared a knowing smile, recognizing Brother and Sister Andersen from the ward underneath all the costume and make-up. How thoughtful it was that the Andersen's would leave their own children on this special night and show such caring to others. Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus had brought candy, nuts, and fruit as well as the nice gifts and they made themselves comfortable as they were in the Call home and visited with the family. Oh what a special Christmas that was for the Call family.

Shortly after Christmas, the ward was divided. The Call's and the Andersen's were now in different wards and the children of the two families grew up in different wards not knowing each other. Time passed and the children grew up.

When JoAnn Call was a senior in high school, she started dating Lynn Andersen, Mr. and Mrs. Santa's son. After Lynn and JoAnn were married, Dorma shared with her daughter the secret identity of Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus who had come to their home years ago when she was just small.

So the real Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus gave JoAnn their son for Christmas, although it was several years later.

I Can Make A Difference By...

The following video was created by Aylee for the "Reflections" competition a couple of months back.



Link: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7869202243920108498&hl=en

There is a few minutes of blue showing as it was a requirement for the judges to have a few seconds of blank screen - so just have some patience.

All of our school age children submitted items.

Aylee submitted four items and won two trophies (one for this video) and one ribbon. Johnathan submitted two items and won a trophy and a ribbon. Aliece submitted one item and won a ribbon.

Kyle - 10 Years @ Smith's

Kyle was recently awarded for 10 years of service at Smith's. They had a really cool party in Pocatello on Nov 6th. It was a really yummy lunch! Anyways...congrats to him!

Wow....is thanksgiving here already?

I just realized yesterday, that I better start thinking about shopping for some food for thanksgiving. I cannot believe that it snuck up on me so fast this year. That never happens. It seems like Halloween was just a couple of days ago. I guess that I've just been working way too much, and with dad being so ill lately it just flew by. I guess I better get started Christmas shopping, and making cards, and, and, and.....lol What are everyone's plans for Thanksgiving?

Wickedness Never Was Happiness

Alayna has been having a hard time telling the truth lately. She feels that lying will keep her out of trouble. The problem is, she is too sweet and tender to really make it work to her advantage.

Today, Amber was sitting at the piano while Johnathan practiced next to her. Alayna came into the living room with a nice large brown mustache. Amused, Amber asked her if she had been drinking chocolate milk (the kids all had some for a lunch snack after school). Alayna, somehow thinking that she might be in trouble for driving the chocolate milk, shook her head "No". Concerned with Alayna's response, Amber asked again if she were sure that she had not been drinking the chocolate milk. Alayna again said (but time verbally), "No, I didn't do it."

Now, in a loving, but correcting way, Amber said, "Alayna, I think you are telling a lie." Alayna choked back a tear and said that No, she was not lying. After that she started crying. She walked around the house for about 10 - 15 minutes just bawling as her conscience caught up to her on this mishap. After a while the crying stopped and I went up stairs to find that she had fallen asleep on the bed - with her cheeks still wet from all of her guilt ridden tears.

What Mom and Dad do when no one is home

What Mom and Dad do when no one is home

The other day I decided to go home to Arbon and visit Mom and Dad. I didn't tell them that I was coming because I wanted to suprise them. This is what I found them doing when I arrived. I hid behind my car and recorded the entire thing.

Don't they look like they're having fun?

A Roadside Distraction

Today Jake and I were scheduled to have lunch together. I had planned, however, a daddy-date with Alayna to come to work with me in the later part of the morning. Jake and I decided that we would keep our lunch appointment and meet at Carl's Jr. so that Alayna could play on the indoor playground while we visited.

Jake beat us to Carl's Jr. by just a couple of minutes. He decided to stand outside by the road to wait for us. The road was congested with busy lunch goers, and it didn't help that we were on the road where the High School is located. I saw Jake on the side of the road by the parking lot and pointed him out to Alayna. Jake started waving at Alayna to get a response from her and she was waving back.

I slowed the truck down to make the turn into the parking lot. The person behind me also slowed down. However, it appears that the third person was distracted by Jake's energetic waves to Alayna instead of watching the cars ahead of him. Sure enough, he rammed into the guy behind me.

I was oblivious to it all but I saw a concerned look on Jake's face. When I saw the car behind me pull into the same parking lot as myself with another car right behind, I figured something was up. We didn't want to get tangled up in the mess, so we grabbed Alayna and quickly walked into the restaurant, not daring to look back at the two cars that were getting ready to assess the situation.

We had a good lunch and no cops showed up to escort us outside Whew!

Robbed!

Yesterday morning I woke up and went to the computer to catch up on emails and such. I had Quicken open from the previous night of doing our monthly budget. So, just before closing the program down I updated my transactions. After the download I noticed that I had a new transaction on my Discover card. It was for appleonlineus to the amount of 100.00 even. The transaction took place on Sunday 11/4.

I scratched my head trying to think of anything that Amber or I would have ordered from Apple Computers. I couldn't think of anything so I called the company and asked them about it.

Someone had ordered a $100.00 iTunes Gift Card with my name and Credit Card number. Man I was mad. I wanted to know the email address, ip-address, general location, etc of the purchase, but they would not give me that information. They did, however, commit to refunding the purchase back to my account.

I then called Discover Card and had them cancel my card. After they canceled it they told me that it would be 7 - 10 days before I received my new card. I hung up and then thought about all of the auto-payment setups that I have with Discover. I called them back to complain about the 7 - 10 day wait time and they said, "Well, we could expedite it to you." I asked how long that would take. They said that it would be here tomorrow (today now). Wow! What a difference, I guess I just had to complain a bit!

Anyway, over the next few days I'll be calling businesses and trying to change my credit card on file with them.

I can't believe how easy it is for someone to take your card number these days. It could be from an unsecure website, a mischievous waiter/waitress at the restaurant, or the teenager at the drive-thru window. Anyone who takes your card away from you and returns a few minutes later could have written down the necessary numbers.

Well, that is my first experience with a stolen card. I am hoping my identity is safe in the meantime!

The thing that makes me the most mad....I had just memorized my discover card number! :-)

Baby Refund

Over the past few days, Jace has been a bear to live with. He is screaming unless you are holding him. He won't sleep unless he is in your arms. Amber and I have been a bit frazzled with the amount of sleep he is letting us have - Amber has the worst of it as she is still nursing.

We were joking yesterday about taking him back to the hospital to get a refund. That very same day we got this check in the mail from the Doctor's office from the doctor's that delivered Jace. It was a refund check for the same amount of our copay for Jace's delivery.

Wow! They do give refunds! The only problem is they didn't send a "Return Label" with the refund, so I guess we will have to keep him.

Saturday update

Dad is doing pretty good today. Micah has been at work at the hospital so she has been able to sneak in a few times to say hi. Kyle and I and the kids were there this morning, and he looked pretty good. He is just anxious to go home. Hopefully it will be soon. His oxygen is down to about 4 liters and they are starting to test blood thinners to get rid of the clots he has without making him lose blood. So far he seems to be tolerating things well. I work tonight again so I will be able to drop in on him a few times tonight and in the morning. Thanks to all that have come to visit. It means more than you think! We love you so much. Carina

Glen

Just wanted to let everyone know that Dad is doing ok. They gave him 2 more units of blood yesterday. His blood levels today suggest that he doesn’t have any active bleeding for now. He is having a lot of trouble with walking. He gets pretty winded. He is on a lot of oxygen! I know it is at least 10 liters….but I cannot remember for sure. They are hoping that he won’t need it so much after the next few days. It looks like he has some pneumonia in the bottom of his lungs, but it seems to be getting a little better. He also has staff infection, but for now it doesn’t appear to be MRSA (which is the worst). So for now, he should be there until the first of the week at the very least. Oh and he also has blood clots in his leg, that are breaking loose and moving up (they are mid thigh right now – started in his calf). That normally would be really bad, but since he had the surgery to put the filter in …. So far it is ok. They are trying to decide when they can put him back on his blood thinners. Here is a picture from Halloween. He looks pretty good in this one.

Love ya, Carina

Halloween Haul

Our Halloween festivities made for a very busy day for the family - especially Amber who spent the early morning dressing kids, applying makeup, and taking pictures. The kids had a great time showing off their costumes at school.


Amber and I met at the Mall during lunch with Aliece, Alayna, and Jace hoping to do some trick or treating there. However, we were off on our time and they hadn't started the trick or treating so we just let them play in the play area.



Amber grabbed the kids just as school was getting out and they came to Novell to go trick or treating. We did a couple of floors there and got a lot of candy.



Jake had invited us to go to Omniture for their Halloween activities. So, after about 45 minutes of Novell trick or treating we went to Omniture as Jake's guests. My goodness, they really out did themselves. Each department had its own theme. The place was decked out to the hilt! They had candy, activities, pictures, actors, etc. It was pretty incredible. The kids really enjoyed themselves. They will never be able to look at Novell's trick-or-treating in the same light again!



When we got home we had the traditional chili dogs. Then the kids headed out to go on their third trick or treating outing of the day. For the trick or treaters at our house we played our Halloween Soundtrack that we made and had Jen's old strobe light going in the window as well as a black light that I "inherited" from Jake when he left Novell. We also through a little dry ice in the front yard pond. It was pretty fun.



By the end of the day we had a 5 gallon bucket plus an ice cream bucket of uneaten candy. Our biggest haul ever!

After the kids got in bed, Jake and Shantell came over and visited for a bit. Jake had an interested costume - dressed up as a man with broken fingers - you'll have to ask him why he changed mid-day from Harry Potter to his new outfit.

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!