Christmas Extravaganza 2008

Before I start this, I must say that I forgot my SD card in Hamilton so you must wait for Lauren to send it to me to get pictures put up! I will post them as soon as I get the card back! :)


This year, Christmas was a week long! :) We started off our Christmas break by driving to Billings at 9pm (after watching the Grizzlies lose the National Championship) and not getting there until 2am. The good news about doing it this way is that the kids (and me too!) slept the whole way there. We all slept in a little on Saturday morning and then made our way to our friends, Amber and Steve's house for a little visit. We exchanged gifts and let the kids play with each other for a while and I even got to feel baby Sophie move a little! :) Amber is 35 weeks pregnant so Sophia Emma will be born soon! We are very excited about her arrival!


After leaving Amber's in the late morning, we headed to Lincoln, MT where Chris' mom and her husband now live. We got there in the early evening and the kids were excited! Their bulldog, Fred, also had a great time with the kids. He wanted to play with them and their toys! The kids wanted Gramma Sharon to play games with them the whole time we were there. We also went to the Community Creche and had a very yummy Christmas dinner and of course opened presents. We went to an appetizer contest where Sharon submitted some delicious meatballs and tortilla pinwheels, but for some reason she didn't win even though they were the best things there! Well, it turns out that the judges were the husbands of the other contestants so it was rigged! But while Gramma babysat, we got to go down to the bar and try all of the appetizers out so that was fun. It was a nice relaxing time and a great way to start our vacation. There was a lot of snow while we were there, but do you think that stopped Chris from running? Of course not! He went out every morning even though the temperatures were far below 0 on some of those mornings. Me, I decided to stay in and play games and read a couple of really good books! ;) Thanks Mom and Lon for a fun time in Lincoln! Pictures to come soon!

On Christmas Eve morning, we headed to Hamilton. Usually this trip should take about 2 and a half hours, but it took a little longer with the roads not being in perfect condition. We got there around 11am and I headed straight to the gym. I really needed to get some running in! Kelly was supposed to get in on Christmas Eve morning, but her bus was stuck in Billings for 12 hours and didn't get there until late that night. For dinner that night, my dad took everyone that was there so far out to a really nice dinner at the Victor Steakhouse. When we got home, the kids got to open one present, new pajamas and slippers, and then we got our cookies ready for Santa. We had been tracking Santa on the computer all day and as he was getting closer, the kids decided they better get into bed or Santa wouldn't come because they wouldn't be sleeping! Kelly, Lauren, and Caiden woke up early (6am!) because they were so excited. We told Caiden he could watch a movie while we waited for everyone else to get up and for Kevin, Aleisha, Madison, and my Mom to come to my Dad's house to open presents. Promptly at 8am, the present opening began! Man was it ever crazy! There are now 5 kids and 3 spouses and 4 grandchildren plus my mom and dad. There was a lot of boxes and wrapping paper spread everywhere by the time we were done. The kids got everything they wanted plus some! I got a new shuffle from Chris which I was very surprised and excited about! The rest of the day was spent playing with our new stuff and helping Mom in the kitchen with Christmas dinner. There were 17 people at Christmas dinner which was a lot of fun. After dinner, we played a game where my dad played a song and we had to try and figure out who that song belonged to. It could be a song that reminded him of us or that we had said we really liked, etc. The winner would get $100 so the stakes were high! Well, Chris and I tied! 9 a piece out of 15 songs so we didn't do too bad! We split the money and each got $50 so that was fun. Later that night, we played our first game of blackjack. Gambling is big in our family, but not everyone knows how to play poker so we did blackjack instead. I was only up $6 the first night, but we also played on Friday and Saturday night and I won $15 each of those nights so $36 in all!

The day after Christmas is always spent shopping in Missoula and bowling! Kelly, Kristin, Jav, baby Megan, and I all left early and spent a ton of money at Target, Ross, Old Navy and the Mall. There were a ton of good deals everywhere we went and I got lots of new stuff! After lunch, Chris and the kids came up and we all went bowling, which is the kids' favorite. Chris, the kids and I ate dinner at the China buffet and then headed back to Hamilton for some Wii playing and more blackjack!

Saturday was our anniversary - 6 years! :) We spent most of the day packing up our stuff (we had to UPS 2 boxes home because the kids got so much stuff - it had nothing to do with all of the stuff I bought in Missoula!) :) My friend, Dana, and her husband one of her daughters came over to visit and Dana fixed my hair for church later that night. It was really great catching up with her! Chris and I were going to go to Lolo that night to listen to Chris' uncle's band play, but the roads got pretty bad up Lolo pass so we stayed in and hung out and played more Wii and more blackjack. :) That night, we also had my niece Megan's baptism. It was really neat because we are the Godparents of Megan and the priest that baptized her is the same priest that married us on that same night 6 years ago in that same church. The same time too! It was a beautiful baptism and Father Jack was great, although he confused all of our names! After the baptism, my mom made her famous spaghetti sauce and we all just ate and hung out before playing blackjack, yes again! We were up early the next day and left right at 6am. The kids were tired and slept for over 3 hours right off the bat. We only stopped twice the whole trip and got home in 11 hours. It was a long 11 hours, but the kids did really well considering. And thank GOD for portable DVD players! ;) The trip was short, but so much fun!!! The dogs and cats were excited to see us when we got home and I will tell you, it was very hard getting up this morning for work!

Pictures to come soon!!!