Christmas Highlights

*Seeing our cousin Chrystal and her new daughter Laiken (3 months old)

*Having my family see me “break down”. I had worked myself too hard that day so I was up in my room resting and crying because there was so much I felt I needed to do and was so frustrated that I couldn’t do everything and was letting everyone down. So I made them all surround me and give me a hug.

*Having a picnic style Christmas Eve dinner in my room so that I could continue resting before we started opening presents.

*Making Michael work for his call of duty game. We set up a mission for him by coming up with clues leading him to different places around the house where he had to scout out the army base and destroy it using my nephews little army men and a Nerf gun. Once he found the camp and destroyed it the clues to the next base were written on the bottom of the army men.

*Playing bingo with my nephews.

*Possibly having a new tradition of eating breakfast at mom’s on Christmas morning.

*Christmas at grandmas with the whole family!

*Seeing Tracy and Emma

*Playing games with mom, grandma and dad most mornings. Mom actually beat me at skip-bo and rummikub

*Seeing everyone at church both Strafford and Fair Grove

*Having dinner with Brenda, Ally and Megan the family Laura and I used to babysit/nanny for. They have grown up so much!!

*Seeing my friend Amanda, a friend from back in middle school, and her absolutely adorable pregnant self!

*Seeing Andrews new house and getting to spend some time chatting with him.

*Family game night. I am horribly bad at French charades….

*Chronicles of Narnia The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in my opinion the absolute best so far. I love how open they were about God. I was crying by the end of it.

*Going to the DAV with Dad. I had never seen him leave church so fast after service.

*Steak-n-Shake, Andy’s, Mud House and cashew chicken.

*Getting family portraits taken.

*Getting to see Rebecca my friend from church starting in middle school.

*Getting to see Sarah, a friend from college who now lives along our route from Colorado to Missouri.

*Getting to see Aunt Toni and cousin Sarah and her two kids.

*Surprising Wayland and Millie, part of our adopted family, at the church where Wayland preaches.

All in all it was a great trip. It had its ups and downs and times where we argued and cried and misunderstood each other and got stressed. But we are family and we love each other and I feel so blessed to have been able to have as much time with everyone as I did!