Our Christmas Vacation

Wow, so many things happened this Christmas vacation where do I begin?! It all started out three weeks ago when I left on an 8 hour plane ride to Washington with the kids all by myself. Brody and Brooklyn were amazing , they couldnt have been any better. The flight attendant on my last leg of the day was awful to me and the kids. She was seriously sooo rude that it ruined my day and to make matters worse they lost our luggage. But those are just little hiccups to the trip. The first week was rather uneventful as I just relaxed with my parents and Taylor and Jessie at home. We did last minute Christmas shopping and Beach house stuff. The whole gang was supposed to arrive on Saturday but the weather was like anything I had ever seen before growing up in Washington. Alyssa and Mason and their family made it into PDX just before they closed it. Chris and Tiffany's flight was cancelled and so they decided to drive home. Josh was mid flight and would stop in Vegas before I could talk to him again. When he arrived there I told him that PDX was closed and that he probably wasnt going to make it. He soon found out that they were not continuing the flight because of weather. Well we got him on a flight to Seattle for that night where Chris and Tiffany would pick him up and bring him home. Only problem was Chris and Tiffany didnt make it. They got stuck in the pass and then they closed the pass so they had to turn around. They ended up staying the night at some hotel in some city and went another way the next day. They finally did make it home. Josh 's flight took off for Seattle but it didnt land there. After flying around Seattle for 45 minutes they flew all the way back to Oakland to land. By this time it was 1 am in the morning and Josh had been flying since 6 am Eastern Time. They told them on the flight that they were going to try again to fly back to Seattle and land. Well after waiting 2 hours on the plane they finally terminated that flight. So now Josh was stuck in Oakland. He slept (not really) in the airport that night on hard tile floor and got on the soonest flight he could to Seattle the next morning. He was the last flight that landed in Seattle before they closed it again. He rented a car and drove home. It took him a lot longer because of the weather but he finally did make it. We were finally all there to celebrate Christmas. Once everyone was there we could start our vacation which included...
Feeding Frenzy's (lots of them!)

The Dreaded Family Photo Session

Christmas Eve in our pjs

More pictures

Cousins battling for toys, attention, etc. It was way too much fun!

Silly Family Time

Brooklyn with my cousin Tayah

Brody on Christmas Eve

My Cousin Shayne (he is single and looking! let me know if you are interested)

and even more family pictures

pictures of the snow that we got stuck in twice. once with tiffany and me and the other time with josh and me. Oh the fun of it all. good memories though.

picture of our house covered in snow...we were really snowed in for a long time. my big outing one day was to the gas station with my dad in his truck. yipee!

josh reading stories to the boys

grandpa ruff housing with the boys

lots of tickling, all laying on top of each other, us girls trying to wrestle my dad

indoor "snowball" fights

this is and indoor "snowball" you take white tights and stuff it with batting and tie both ends shut

Jessie enjoying everyone home. all the people she loves were there.

Brooklyn's cuteness!

Chase--my sisters boy--is such a doll. He is so big now and so fun to talk to. He says the funniest things and he loves baby Brookie.

My superstar little sister Taylor got recognized for her amazing athletic ability one night over the break. She is a freshman that played on her school varsity volleyball team and rocked it! I think she gets her athletic ability from our dad but she learned how to play from me. (okay maybe not all from me but I like to think so)

Before we left we made a gingerbread house and Brody loved tasting all the candy

Santa brought Brody a basketball hoop among many other gifts

Our trip ended with going to the Beach House and staying there for the first time. All I have to say is that it is AMAZING! I am looking forward to all the times that we will spend there as a family and all the memories that will be created. Thank you mom and dad for helping us do that. In the middle of all of it we had so much fun just being together. We shopped, played games, watched movies, ate out, ate in, got sick of each other, loved each other, got sick, got better, got sick again, and most of all we loved every second of it. A special thank you to my mom and dad for all of it and a congratulations to Chris and Tiff for there wonderful new that they are expecting baby number two. We love our family and are so blessed.