Christmas Evening

We had our normal Christmas dinner at our house. It is always so much fun to have everyone over. I am not sure why we don't see everyone more during the year since we all live within miles of each other but for some reason Christmas dinner seems to be the time to get together.

Megan and Alex waiting for everyone to arrive. I am taking pictures because I am so on top of it this year that everything is done and we are just watching the clock.

It is 5:00 p.m. and everyone is here right on time to eat. Oh, we have a problem. I was so with it that my turkey said it was done at 4:00 so I turned it down to keep it warm and went on with my day. Well, at 5:00 when Mike went to cut it it was not even close to being done. Oops. That would be my fault. The good news is that we ate more of the appetizers than normal and it made everyone really hungry by the time the turkey was actually finished. :)

Sandy and Leighton. She is just so cute and it was her 6 month birthday. Luckily she just eats rice cereal so she got to eat on time!!!!!!

Bill and Aaron looking for some pre-dinner snacks.

So darn cute.......

Oh yeah, It is 6:30 and we are finally eating dinner. I think everyone was starving.

Brianne and Phil. Rest time after all of that turkey.

Megan was so excited to get to play with Leighton. She just loves babies!!!!!

We had another great Christmas and even though dinner was so late I think everyone had fun. I had to send dessert home though since it was bed time by the time we finished eating.

Thanks to everyone for coming and Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Christmas Breakfast

After we finished opening our gifts at home we headed down to Jim and Marilyn's house to open more packages with them and have breakfast. As usual they were very kind to everyone and we all got some great gifts.
Megan and Alex when we first arrived.

Alex got a kindle touch. He has been wanting one for so long and he was really exicted. He plugged it in immediately to charge it and has already bought a few books. He got three gift cards to buy books with so that has been great. He has a list all ready to buy.

Megan got a really cute smiley face key chain that opens up and a lot of cash. She was so excited about both.

Somehow I got them all to stand still for a bunch of pictures so beware. There are alot of them on here but I liked them all!!!!!!

I am not sure how excited Mike was about this one but it turned out pretty cute.

Everyone is even looking at the camera at the same time.

Mike was tired of smiling so he made me be in one.

We even set up the timer and this is only the second try. Very impressive.

We ate breakfast after my picture taking was done. It was so good.

Alex and Jessie.

Mike with his folks.

We had a great morning and had fun spending it with Jim and Marilyn.

It's time to go back home and make a turkey for dinner!!!!!!!

Christmas Morning

We normally open our Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve but this year we decided to mix everything up and opened them on Christmas morning with our Santa gifts. We had to wake Megan and Alex up at 8:00 so that we would have time to open them before we went to Jim and Marilyn's for breakfast. I guess we should have stuck with opening them on Christmas Eve. :)

They are both ready to hand everything out.

Megan with her huge pile of gifts.

Alex with all of his. They both get so many great things. It always surprises me.

I have a huge pile of gifts also. I made out great. I got so many things and I loved all of them.

Santa was good to Mike. He got long socks and a bottle of Black Velvet. He will be nice and warm working in the snow in Spokane.

Megan got a whole bunch of her favorite shower gel, hand lotion and body spray from Santa.

I got a great scarf from my Dad and Bonnie. They obviously know that I am always cold.

Alex and Megan both busy opening everything.

Mike got the cowboy boots that he has wanted forever.

Alex got a new bike. I got annoyed at his bike while he was in California over the summer and I sold it at a garage sale while he was gone. I guess I should have just rolled it out to the shed because his new bike cost a lot more than I sold his old one for!!!!!! :)

We got so many great things from everyone that we couldn't spend the day with. It was a great morning and we appreciate all of our wonderful gifts. Thank you to everyone that is so far away!!!!!!!

Christmas Eve

This year we got to do things a little bit different. My Dad and Bonnie were lucky enough to get to go to Stefanie's house in California for Christmas so that meant we were free on Christmas Eve. Our good friends Tony and Suzy were nice enough to invite us to their family dinner at Suzy's Mom's house and we had a great time. They are always so much fun to do things with and they always think of us when Holiday's come around.
Alex at Barb's house. He is trying his hardest not to have to help us!!!!!!

Megan, Suzy, Sherri, Daria, and Alex before dinner. Sherri is Suzy's cousin and Daria is her girlfriend. They are both so nice and so much fun.

It is dinner time. Everyone sitting at the table.

Another good picture of everyone eating.

Barb and Megan relaxing after dinner.

Megan holding Suzy's wine. Sherri's brother works at a college and one of the classes made wine so they had three bottles of the same type of wine to compare so everyone had three glasses to taste test. They were all good but you could definately tell a difference between them.

The boys playing chess while the girls rest and watch everyone open some gifts.

Very intense games. Who will win????? Suzy's Brother, Sean made it home from Washington D.C. for Christmas. He is a great chess player so he is supervising!!!!

Alex convinced everyone to play board games so he is getting out Apples to Apples while Tony and Mike get mad at me for taking their picture!!!!

Everyone but Megan is playing the game. Yes, you heard that correctly that means I am playing. I really don't like games but I played and didn't even complain.

We had a great time and really enjoyed getting to spend the evening with everyone. They are all always so nice to us and are a lot of fun. We really appreciated the invitation and the great evening. Thank you so much for having us!!!!!!!!!

Leavenworth

We headed over to Leavenworth to watch the tree lighting on Saturday. Alex was at his friends house so he didn't want to go with us so it was just Mike, Megan, Jake and me. We had all sorts of fun!!!!!
Megan was taking pictures out the window on the way. It is a pretty drive when you get to the snow but I am not much of a car rider so it would be really nice for me if it wasn't so far away. :)

We finally made it and after 30 minutes of driving around looking for parking we gave up and found a pay lot. We had no idea how much it cost, the sign just said pay in the office, so we went to pay and it was only $5.00. That seemed like nothing after driving around for so long.

There were so many people there. It was packed already at 2:00 pm and the tree lighting wasn't until 4:30.

We found some snacks. Jake likes Bratwursts and Mike found the best kettle corn. It was so good. We went back at 5:00 to buy some to bring home and they had closed already so no more snacks for us. We were not to happy!!!!!

Mike and I. It was so cold. I have on three jackets, a scarf, gloves, lots of socks, big shoes and I am still numb. Burrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

We decided it was time for some hot chocolate. It was really good but my fingers were still frozen. We should have asked if we could just rest our hands in the hot water.

I was trying to get a picture of Megan and Jake before they turned on all of the lights but I think the guy behind them thought I was trying to get his picture. It cracks me up because I didn't even notice him until I got home and put the pictures on the computer. Now I can't stop laughing about it. He looks very happy to be there.

They lit up the tree. It looked really cool. They sure use a lot of lights in that little city. It is so pretty when everything gets turned on.

All of the lights are on now. It looks so festive.

Jake and Megan before we head back to the car.

We made it back to the car and I officially can't feel my toes. Megan wasn't to happy about the cold either but she warmed up pretty quick. Luckily Mike's fancy truck has seat warmers so my buns were burning before I knew it. Yeah!!!!

Apparentely Megan and Jake had a rough day. They both fell asleep on the way home.

We had a really fun day. We tried to go in some of the shops but it was so busy that we didn't make it into all of them. I always say it would be fun to go there sometime when it wasn't so busy but we have never done that. I need to put it on the very long list of things to do.