Summing up 2008 part 1

We had a very busy end of the year. It was fun but I'm glad to be done with the holidays and making a new groove for 2009. I'm going to do a short n sweet summary of 2008, mostly in pictures because well it could be the end of 2009 before I finished it all if I didn't do it this way. ;)

Two weeks before Christmas we flew to California, first visiting Shawn's parents. There we saw his brother & his kids, his grandpa, two aunts & one uncle. The kids had so much fun playing together! The girls mostly playing with make up and dolls while the boys played with army guys. We spent half of our trip at my in laws and had a good visit. It had been about 16 months since she saw Shawn, longer for her step dad & we hadn't seen our niece & nephew in at least a year. Shawn put together a shadow box with a couple of photos from Iraq, small medals that he's earned, the rank promotions he got during his deployment and a couple of patches that he wore while deployed - she loved it. Later that night I gave her the paperbag album I made - she cried, I think I won. ;)

Then we headed up to my sister's house and crammed a lot into 3 days! Our first night in my best friend, her husband and one of her daughters joined mine & my sister's family for dinner and then we exchanged our gifts. The next day the four of us headed out to my grandparents house where my sister & her family joined us later. The kids had gifts to open and I handed out the family photo & homemade ornament. The two nights at my sister's house Shawn & I stayed at a hotel while my sister kept the kids at their house. They offered to pay for one night but agreed to keep the kids a second night for us. I think she had pity on me after finding out that I was puking & running to the toilet the first night. It was SO nice to be completely alone and not have any little people climbing into our bed at night or yelling for food in the morning. The day before heading back home we visited with two of Shawn's uncles & an aunt before heading out to meet my best friend & her family {minus one} at the Bass Pro Shop closest to them. I saw the pictures on her blog but WOW, that place was huge. And I must say for being full of hunting, fishing & other outdoorsy stuff it was enjoyable & even fun to be at! After hanging out with the kids in Santa's workshop we headed out & went to dinner to celebrate her birthday. =] It was a good visit.

And then we came home! We had 4 days before Christmas and still had each other's gifts to buy. We kept things pretty simple {as our budget usually requires we do} but got a little more for the kids and each other than most years. I helped the kids make a gingerbread house and they ate all of the candy off of it - not the house though it was "yuck" to them. Christmas Eve we had my grandmother's English muffin pizzas {later I found out that I didn't make them exactly like she does but they were still yummy!}, ham and most of the fixings. The kids roughhoused with daddy and before going to bed they each opened one gift - coordinating pj's & a robe. This is a tradition I picked up from my mom; each year she got my sister & I pajamas, robe, slippers - something that we would wear Christmas morning. This year I got their pj's from the bass pro shop. Hers are striped & the robe is pink but says "Fishing Princess" on the back, his have a camping theme with a compass on the back of the robe. They are super cute & I got them at a great deal! Of course I took about 20 pictures of them in their robes =] but I'm sparing you & only putting up one. Once they were sleeping Shawn put together their Jeeps while I stuffed stockings. We opened one gift to each other which led to a few more, leaving a couple for the next day. This is a fun thing that I think we'll do each year. Less mess in the morning & the kids didn't have to wait for us to open our gifts before playing with their toys.

Well, I was going to sum up all of the rest of 2008 in one post but wow, you'd be looking at this all day. I'll continue the rest - Christmas Day photos & the trip to New Mexico in the next few days. Then it's all about 2009! Thanks for visiting!