RIVERVIEW CHRISTMAS GATHERING - PART 1 - Surprise Guests!

Whoa... what a great weekend. I will try and catch you up on our little Erickson gathering yesterday. We really had a roller-coaster ride with this event. We sent out the invite thinking truly that it will probably be the Simmons and the Spokane Erickson's as the date was right before Christmas and bad roads, etc... but at one point 36 people were coming! As it turned out none of the Cerrillo's could make it because of weather. It did start to snow Saturday morning and the Spokane streets, at any rate, were quite slippery--The paper this morning said there were 150+ accidents! So we were so understanding of people wanting to put 'family safety first!'

That said... we did have a great time even WITHOUT that fun-loving rowdy Cerrillo bunch. What really helped turn this into a gala affair was that MARY AND PAUL showed up and truly surprised all!!! I will maybe let them tell their saga of their trip over themselves...although Mary will allude to it in the video I will embed in this blog update. We just had a great time gathering, spending time with Mom, and, of course, eating. Here is a picture of some of the kids playing outside Grandma's room... wait - I mean here are some kids and Kirsten.... wait - I guess it really is just a picture of three kids. :)



Mom was awake for much of the day. She has really been more alert in the last couple of days than she has for the past month. She did get tired and slept and then we put her back into bed for a later afternoon nap, but when dinnertime came around, she was ready to get up and get going again.

Here are a couple videos of the party. DISCLAIMER: These are all uncut... and very, very, rough, non-professional.

(COPY AND PAST URL INTO YOUR BROWSER...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSI-fpMILG0
DESCRIPTION: 1.5 min; people at the party...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x-4hfQhqEk
DESCRIPTION: 30 seconds; grandma... and 'twins'