Christmas Fun

After a very busy, exciting, fun, and thankful Christmas, we are home!!! As much as we love visiting our family, it is always such a great feeling to pull back into our driveway and settle in back at home.

We began our journey Tuesday, December 23rd. We traveled through a snow storm heading north to visit my family in Gladwin. After a drive that took much longer than normal, we made it safely to my childhood home. I was so excited to see my mom and dad!!! My parents transformed their downstairs rec-room into a playroom. Russell and Sloane had an absolute ball playing with all the toys and running around in their new space at Grammy's and Papa's house! My parents also had 3 feet of snow with more coming down everyday so the kids enjoyed playing outside. Russell climbed the "mountains" outside built by the plow trucks while Sloane enjoyed being pulled around on the sled by Papa. Russell and Aron also had fun building a snowman. They used a carrot for the nose, crackers for the eyes, and grapes for the mouth. When I went out to snap pictures, Russell was eating the grapes faster than Aron could put them on the snowman. We spent Christmas day with the Wilcox family. The kids LOVED opening gifts and were especially excited to see that Santa filled their stockings! After Russell did not find a light saber in his stocking, he went over to the tree, bent down, and asked, "is there a light saber in there?" It cracked the entire family up!!! Russell originally had asked Santa for a Diego rescue pack, but the week leading up to Christmas he decided he wanted a light saber. Thankfully, Santa was well prepared!!! Sloane was under the weather on Christmas and ended up having the stomach flu, but she still enjoyed playing with her new doll house and baby dolls.

On December 26th we packed up the car (it was a tight squeeze) and headed to south west Michigan to visit Aron's family in St. Joseph. Thankfully we had perfect driving conditions. We enjoyed a BIG family gathering on Saturday which included family members from Wisconsin and Florida. Due to warm temperatures (60 degrees) and a thunderstorm, the snow melted entirely so we were pretty much trapped inside. We also lost power due to high winds, but luckily it came back on by 7:00 a.m. The kids had fun playing at Grammy Carlson's house as well as at Papa Carlson's and Bevie's house. They love to explore new spaces.

We made it home Monday and found that our snow in Royal Oak was also gone, but were happy to see we had power and no damage done by the strong winds. I was able to spend yesterday taking down Christmas decorations. Aron and I are looking forward to a quiet New Year's at home with the kids. We are grilling steaks and watching movies. Ahhhhhhh...HOME SWEET HOME!!!!!!!!!!!