A White Christmas - Sort of!

Well - we weren't there on Christmas Day, but we did arrive the day after. We surprised everyone by pulling up to Mom's house exactly 22 hours after we left and one day earlier than expected. We told them we were going to have to stay the night (and made them think we were in Oklahoma City,) but then honked and asked them to come help us bring the kids in! It was awesome! That night we were able to play in the snow as the temperatures were literally going up and the snow was starting to melt. We made our first snowlady when it was totally dark, but still had a blast. The next day we were out again, during the RAIN, playing in the snow, building another snowman, jumping on the snow covered trampoline, and having a snowball fight using perfect snowballs made with a red plastic snowball maker from Jake. After the rain continued we were soaking wet but had had a really great time. Some snow stuck around for the whole trip, and it even snowed a little later on, but not enough to snowmobile. Maybe next year!

22 hours there, 20.5 hours on the way back with a 1 year old and a 3 year old. We watched lots of movies, ate lots of snacks, stopped at McDonalds and played, played with toys including Mommy's phone, took a couple of naps, and slept pretty well at night. The hard part was getting comfortable in the carseats. They really did awesome!!!!!!

We went outside and played in the snow as soon as we could get bundled up!

Uncle Zach, Aidan, and Uncle Kaleb were all building a snowwoman.

You can actually see my son's perfect aim in hitting Meme with a big snowball.

Warming up with Meme and Uncle Kaleb after playing outside.

We woke up the next morning and had Christmas number 3 for the kids. The kids were really good after not much sleep and a long car ride. They were happy to see 3 of their 4 Uncles: Uncle Jake (arrived on New Years Day), Uncle Kaleb, and Uncle Zach, Meme, Grampy, and lots of pets: Zeus and Zena (the Golden Retrievers), Juno (the Westie puppy), and Daphne (the kitty). Asher loved that!
Note: If you are wondering about the pink bra on the tree, you will have to check out my mom's blog to find out the reason! http://zanygus.blogspot.com/




We were also able to see my mom's side of the family including Uncle Gordon and Aunt Mary, Logan, Tyler, Aunt Brenda, Kaitlin, Joey, Great Grandma Gus, and Uncle Timmy.



Great Grandma Gus babysat the munchkins when we all went bowling.

This trip was truly one filled with play! We played:

Bowling

Wii

Musical Chairs

We also played: Blink, Poker, Texas Rummy, Buggy Bingo, BINGO, and the crane game.

Some of my other best moments of the trip were watching Asher climb on and love the big dogs (She really needs a big doggy at home!), listening to Mom and Tom get the kids up and feed them breakfast every morning so Matt and I could sleep in (Kaleb also helped in carrying them out of his room to Meme and Grampy), going to Crazy Penguin with Kaleb and playing Rock Band, going bowling with the whole family, having the best pizza in the world Sam's pizza, and eating cheese curds at Culvers. There were many fun times.

Asher with Zeus

New Year's Eve was great! We allowed Aidan to stay up until midnight and the little guy actually made it until 12:26 to be exact. He was in a great mood almost the whole night, and play right along with us until the ball dropped. I knew he was getting his second wind when he was literally running from one end of the house to the other with his footy pj's on, his glowstick "belt", and a little smile on his face. He had a ball.

It was so great seeing everyone and our best trip ever to moms!