Christmas: Phase 2

Before we headed back out of town, we enjoyed a two days at home. These days were full of lots of lounging around (reading running blogs and books on the Kindle!), pancakes for breakfast, playing with Christmas gifts (even those not meant for indoors) and snow forts. Tuesday afternoon also included a visit from one of my best friends from college and her parents. We visited, played Uno, taught Ava to use her scooter, and ate dinner together. There were a quick two days!

Wednesday morning we were Wisconsin bound. We arrived at my parents right before 5:00, and the evening was nice and laid back. Ava went outside with Grandma for a little bit, snuggled with my dad (because like she said she can snuggle with me anytime), and coloring with my dad. We also enjoyed my dad's chili for supper!

During the day on New Year's Eve, we had our family Christmas. It was just my immediate family (mom, dad, siblings, our spouses and kids) along with our grandparents. We are blessed to still have our Grandma (dad's mom) and Opa (mom's dad) with us! It was an amazing day, made much more special given how close we came to losing mom nearly one year ago. We celebrated Christmas, New Year's, and Opa's birthday with lots of visiting, presents, and playing games. When we were done with the party at mom and dad's, us kids went over to my sister's house and played some more board games. We made the kids keep themselves busy, so we could interact uninterrupted. It was really enjoyable! Went back to my parents around 10:30, and watched the ball drop in Times Square. This allowed us to pretend it was midnight. Ava promptly fell asleep after this. I managed to stay up unit 12, but most of the live excitement we have to celebrate with the East coast. (Kind of lame if you ask me, but whatever.)

outlaws!

Wisconsin staple at the holidays (or at least the part of WI I cam from) raw beef and onions. Weird and unhealthy, but good. Only at Christmas.

me, my siblings, and our spouses.

we played this as kids, too!

later in the night - he can be competitive, so we had to remind him we were playing for fun!

Happy New Year!

Not 5 minutes later!

A quick video of my dad's toast to making it through 2015 - cue tears. He'd kill me if he knew this was on here, but I am glad I saved it!

For New Years Day fun, we took the clan to the ice rink for open skate. It was many of the girls' first time on skates and they did great! My brother then had all of us over at his house for a good ol' Sheboygan "fry out" (grilling brats and hamburgers!). We planed another game, visited, and said many of our good-byes. Didn't take any pictures at his house, but it happened!

We headed back this morning, but it was an extended trip. We stopped off in Rochester for some shopping and supper. The gift card Heidi gave us was burning a whole in my wallet! Love that place! By stopping today to get some things we wanted to spend our Christmas money on, hopefully we can avoid traveling anywhere for several weeks. We have driven 4+ hours four of the last 11 days. We've been home two days. And at our parents the rest of those days. I wish I had a week to recoup from the week off, but just one day will have to do. Not that I would give up even a single ounce of the family time!

I hope you and yours had some blessed holiday celebrations over the last couple of weeks. I will be back starting Monday with the usual Monday motivation, a look at 2016 goals, and a book report! Enjoy what is left of the weekend!