In honor of sanity preservation, we made our trip south to celebrate Christmas a week early. This trip still feels hectic but it helps us to relax and enjoy the holidays at home. Derek and I vowed early on to have Christmas at home for our family. I hope that these years of traveling have filled Cole with the love of his extended family. However, I am not sure we can keep this pace in the future as a family of four! Here's a recap of a fun & family filled 24 hours!
No trip to Grandpa's would be complete without fishing and the outdoors...even if the weather stinks! Just bring the party inside!
We were up Saturday morning to open gifts. Cole made out like a bandit. He
is obsessed with loves his SpongeBob fishing pole from Adam & Rachel. He also got new "blue" light up shoes, a new coat & hat, and lots of great toys!
Sheryl made the traditional Christmas breakfast
meal feast. We stuffed our bellies with casserole, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and maybe a few oreo balls. Whew! I have a little heartburn just thinking about it!
We got to spend some time with our lovely family that we see far too little. Cole was Grandpa's little shadow this trip. He followed G'pa around and even got to sleep in G'pa's bed with him! This overjoys me. Remind me though to teach Cole to never talk politics with Grandpa! ;-)
The weather was icey so Great Grandma Jean was not able to make the trip out to the lake to visit for breakfast. We made a quick trip in to visit with her. I was so happy to show Cole her house. This is the most unchanged place in my life. I was able to show him where she kept the toys and showed him the doll that I used to 'bathe' repeatedly in her bathroom sink.
We headed further south to Anna to visit Great Grandpa Hood in the Veterans Nursing Home. The rest of the Hoods joined us for lunch and fun. Once again, Peyton and Cole took to each other immediately and played with the new goodies they received.
After lunch we packed up and headed home. Jayjay joined us for the ride and Cole slept some of the way. After the whirlwind trip we were very pleased to get home (after a detour to South County Mall where we sat in the parking lot for TWO HOURS to pick up a purchase). Derek and I were amazed by Cole's tolerance for the day. He had very little sleep but was a joy to be around all day and night!
Sunday we relaxed and played with all of our new loot!
We will miss seeing all of the Brenningmeyer's on Christmas Evening but we loved getting to spend time with everyone that we did get to see!
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