New Year's Eve

I dropped Laura and Tom off at the curb at BWI yesterday. It was a sad moment. They were so much fun to have home! On Wednesday we trekked downtown and ate at Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street. It was a purely DC cultural experience. And they don't take credit cards. As far as the dogs go, Ben's doesn't even come close to J-Dawgs but I guess their chili was OK. For dinner that night we had Thanksgiving part II. Dad soaked a turkey breast over night in a brine and boy was it good! On Tuesday Laura and I hit up the great sales at the Leesburg Outlets and then enjoyed a nice visit with a New Zealand bound Anna and her momma out in the the beautiful VA boondocks. They have a sweet set up. On the way home Tom, Mikey and MK met up with us at Famous Dave's for dinner where Laura's manager from when she worked there gave us a 20% off discount. Oh yeah. On Monday, Laura and I hit up Unique and left ever so ticked off. We found something we REALLY wanted to buy, but someone had removed the price tag. No tag, no sale. And no convincing the rude supervisor otherwise. Oh well, it's still the place to go for ridiculous awesome finds. The deal of the week: 2 pairs of brand new lucky jeans for $20. Double scorage! We've also had a fun week working on jigsaw puzzles, reading fun books we got for Christmas and let's not forget sleeping in! So that was our week. Here is a brief summary of our year which most of you have already read because it's

The Nielson Family 2010 Christmas Letter

As it turns out, Jessica is the hostess with the mostest. For some reason as soon as her parents go out of town a murder occurs. In October there was “the death of a vampire” and back in February “death by chocolate” had our house overrun with suspects. Fortunately, the mystery is always solved before the cops get involved. And the house is usually put back together before the parents get back. Although she only lives about 3 miles away we usually don’t know what she’s up to until after the fact. She’ll say stuff like: “Oh yeah, did I tell you I went to NYC this past weekend?” Or, “Didn’t I mention that I signed up to do the Ragnar relay? I ran in it yesterday.” Jessica is currently dating a great guy from Herndon.

According to Facebook, Nathan is obsessed with chicken nuggets. Aside from that, he a first year law student at the University of Idaho. We recently went to visit and were amazed at how beautiful Northern Idaho is. Who knew? They have a sweet set up only a few blocks away from campus. Steph has done a great job making their apartment home sweet home. The law school is bit of a dump, but I suppose you can’t have everything.

Jeff is married! Wow. As is the case with our other daughter in law, we thank our lucky stars everyday for Krista. They are living in Waco, Texas. Unlike most of the Lone Star State, we found out that Waco is kind of a pit when we recently visited. But, the campus of Baylor Law is amazing. They have worked hard to make their little apartment into a slice of heaven on earth. Ahh, young love. Like N&S, J&K are great at keeping up with their blogging so we don’t have to miss them so much!

Tom is not married. But he does love his job at J-Dawgs. He is one happy guy even if all of his sports teams stink out loud. With his crazy busy work schedule it’s a wonder that he’s still on track to graduate in ’12 with his degree in sociology. We enjoyed having him home for a week in August when we went to the beach and got to enjoy his unique sense of humor. All I can say is, thanks dawg, for being Thom.

Laura is doing her thing at BYU. She had a fantastic time studying abroad for four months in London; even if the postal system did lose a package containing most of her souvenirs. She also came close to missing Jeff and Krista’s wedding because of Eyjafjallajokull. How could something so unpronounceable wreak so much havoc? It erupted as she was taking her finals. Suffice it to say, she had an interesting trip home. She is happily pursuing a degree in exercise wellness and loves having Tom and her Nielson grandparents close by. She is bringing a boy home to meet the family over Christmas break. Stay tuned…

Mike aka Mr. Conscientious has had a busy year. He went to Kirtland, Ohio for our stake Youth Conference, hit up Goshen Scout Reservation for scout camp and in July he and his dad went on a 200 mile bike trip with the older scouts for their high adventure trip. He enjoys going above and beyond his homework assignments often opting to produce videos to turn in that are both clever and entertaining. Our family’s 13 year streak of perfect attendance to early morning seminary was broken this past April when Mikey had to miss 3 days for Jeff’s wedding. Boo!

Mary Kate is always moving. She’s either shooting hoops, playing field hockey, splashing around at the pool, roller blading, jumping on the trampoline or riding her bike. The girl is a blur. She loved having Laura home this summer to be goofy with. She gets up every morning at o’dark thirty (along with Mikey) and absolutely loves her seminary class. She has very little use for TV because with all that moving she needs her sleep. This fall she played on the JV field hockey team and is now shooting hoops for the Madison HS freshman team. She couldn’t be happier.

Bruce is quite the trip planner. He is the master of minutiae when it comes to detailing an itinerary. In April he managed to get Laura home via Paris, Madrid and Philadelphia when the rest of the BYU Londoners were stranded. While driving through Idaho last month, he knew the precise location of the Sonic hamburger joint and the appointed time to stop for lunch. Our burgers were roller skated out to our car right on cue. He knows the exits on Interstate 95 for every Chick-fil-A between here and Cocoa Beach. He knows exactly where to park at BWI and Dulles and rarely if ever forgets to print out his boarding pass exactly 24 hours in advance for our flights on Southwest. For Jeff and Krista’s wedding he booked rooms in the Cedar City Hampton Inn so that we could be in the same hallway with both sets of Grandparents. We’ve all decided he’s a walking GPS.

Lucky Linda got to go to London back in February with Bruce (on another one of his famous trips) to visit Laura. We had a great time. While we were there several of the tube stations were down for renovations to get them spiffed up for the Olympics so we ended up doing a lot more walking than we expected to; which actually turned out to be a good thing considering how many Ben’s cookies we consumed. While browsing the miniature mosaics at the V & A museum she managed to accidentally set off the security alarm. Looking like the dorky American tourists we are actually worked to our advantage when the security guards took one look at us, rolled their eyes and let us be.

Happy New Year Everyone!