We had a great Christmas in Minnesota with Mark's family. Unfortunately though, Charlie does not travel very well. We drove into the night on the way down there so the kids would sleep, so we thought. When we pulled into Mark's parent's driveway at 3am, Charlie was singing "Jingle Bells" and he hadn't slept a wink. It was a long night :) On the way home we decided to sleep in a hotel to break the trip up into two days. On the second day we were 12 miles down the road when Charlie started yelling "Stuck! Stuck!". He doesn't like to be stuck in his carseat. Oh well, we survived the driving, and it was worth it.
We arrived in MN on Thursday morning. After a few hours of sleep, we fed the kids and then headed to Sioux Falls, SD where we got to spend a little time with my Grandma and we saw Mark's brother's new office. Then, we went out to eat with Mark's whole family. Charlie was exhausted by this point, but he was a trooper. Thankfully I had Curious George and a portable DVD player for the restaurant :) Ruby was really good, but she had slept much better than Charlie the night before.
Friday, I enjoyed down time at Mark's parent's house. All the guys went bowling in the afternoon; I was invited, but laying around sounded much better. Friday evening we ate appetizers and plenty of snacks. Then we opened presents together. It was wonderful chaos, especially having three two year old boys running around! Charlie split his lip open right in the middle of the stocking stuffers, but once the blood was cleaned up he recovered pretty fast when he realized he got to open presents. Mark's parents were once again very generous with the gifts; the kids had a great time opening all their new toys and we came home with a lot of fun stuff.
Saturday morning we all went to church together. It was a blessing singing Christmas carols with all of Mark's family sitting next to us in the row. After a great lunch, we let the kids nap and then we headed to Mark's grandma's house for the annual Douma Christmas celebration. There we enjoyed homeade soup and pig 'n the blankets plus plenty of sweets. Grandma gave everyone ornaments for the tree and she made Charlie a sock monkey; it is adorable and he loves it. We had a great time catching up with aunts, uncles and cousins.
Sunday we had a very quiet day. Charlie and Ruby (and their parents :) were exhausted from all the activities we lounged around, ate, took naps, and played games...it was wonderful.
Monday I did a little shopping with Mark's mom while Mark did some packing. Then we ate Taco Johns (love it!) for lunch, packed up and took off around 3pm for MI. After a couple of hours, we stopped at the Amish Oven for supper. Thankfully we were the only people in the restaurant because Ruby was crying and Charlie kept trying to run into the kitchen and he wanted to grab the baked goods off the front display case. The servers there were very gracious to us :) We made it to the hotel a few hours later, and by about 9pm we were all sleeping.
Tuesday we finally made it home. We had a fabulous time with family. The weekend reminded me of how blessed we are!
Dad and Mom TH- thanks for your hospitality! It was a lot of fun to spend a long weekend with everyone!
Pictures soon....I know I keep saying that, but I will download them eventually :)
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