Christmas Entry #2 (The people who make us who we are)

Being with family is the best part of Christmas.  We were able to spend time with all of our family, including each of our grandparents. 

Here's a picture of my Grandma making super yummy food!  We had dinner twice at her house and boy, was it good!  She always has the table set so pretty, too.  She makes the best German food around (makes sense since she IS German!).  I love her homemade rolls, red cabbage, salad, schnitzel, vegetables, creamed cauliflower, turkey...oh and it's kind of tradition to have vanilla pudding that has set in small molds, and then drizzled with fresh raspberry sauce for dessert.  She always makes the best meals!  We got to listen to some of her old records, because she just got a new record player that also has a CD player in it.  It was neat to hear some of the Christmas songs that she grew up with from the original records!  She LOVES Harry, and wanted to make sure he was always bundled up and very warm.  She totally spoiled him, and he is very happy for it! (Warm too!)  Oh, the Muhlestein's gave Harry the shirt he is wearing-it says "German in training" Dad and Grandma thought that was really funny. 

My Grandpa Forsberg turned 90 years old on December 27th, and we had a BIG family party on the 29th for him.  90 years!!!!  Amazing!  He is doing quite well.  He has a pretty hard time hearing, and has lost the sight in one eye because of a hemmorage he had in a recent eye surgery.  Other than that, he is great!  He said he hopes that if we live to 90 we can feel as good as he does.  Almost all of his children were able to be there-5 of the 6 children and many many grandchildren and great grandchildren.  It was fun to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen in years.  My grandpa told us some good stories about his youth when his dad was a mission president in Sweden.  One missionary needed a companion because his companion had left, so my grandpa age 15 was the companion.  He remembers riding his bike all over the place during this time.  Then it so happens that this companion ended up moving in down the street from my grandma and grandpa's house they lived in for ....let's see...probably 50 years or so.  Mom, correct me if I'm wrong.  My cousin Ryan created a DVD of pictures from grandpa's childhood to the present.  WOW!  It really hit me, and I got a really interesting feeling that sometimes we "young" folk think that we are doing something different-but really a lot of what we do is just the same that our parents, grands and greats did.  I think our own idea of "family" is built into our DNA...what we do, our parents or grandparents probably did in one era of their life, and it's kind of neat to make that discovery!  One of the neatest parts of the video was the background music was my grandma singing (my mom's cousin Merry had recently converted the tape recordings from the early 80's to CD).  Yes, I cried.

We took a trip down to Monticello to see Grandma Muhlestein!  Joseph came with us too, despite having a cold.  She seemed to be doing really well, and as always had a wonderful meal prepared for us upon arrival!  I love her homemade food.  MMMmmm, her canned peaches are so yummy.  She now has a new greenhouse built on the front of her house and it is really neat!  We found out that her home was a CCC barrack and was actually moved from it's original location.  They built on to it, but that was the original structure!  How interesting!  She loved holding Harry, and just said how good it felt to hold him.  It was nice to get some updates on the cousins and family on that side.  I always enjoy hearing stories of her past and the history of Monticello, and yet again I was very fulfilled!  We also got to see Uncle Jim and Aunt Cynthia.  Boy, he always has a good tale to tell!       

So there you go, a very long blog post about Harry's greats.  He may not remember them in the future, but I want to try my best to help him to know the heritage he came from.