Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas Travels

Peter and I are currently in the car on Interstate 80, mile marker 227 heading east to Mima’s for Christmas dinner. We left Hollidaysburg around 8:15 this morning... and boy was I tired! We were up late last night celebrating Christmas with my side of our family and didn’t go to bed til almost 1 AM. Then I woke up at 6:30 this morning to shower and we had to pack up the car. Ah, the things we do for those we love J It’s about 10:30 in the morning now and we are roughly halfway to NJ. We just stopped at a Sheetz for free coffee (hot chocolate for me!) and some breakfast. I miss having a Sheetz close by in Pittsburgh. Having grown up in Altoona (where the first Sheetz was) there was like one on ever corner practically! One of my uncles actually was friends with the man who started Sheetz when they were little boys…cool, huh?
It was kind of sad packing up this morning because it felt like we were heading home, but we still have half of our little vacation left! We don’t go back to work until Monday and then we have Tuesday off, work 3 days and then a weekend! After that it’s going to be a little rough though because we just had so many fun trips and time off. Oh well, I guess that’s to be expected after Christmas, etc.

Last night at my house was…typical? Wendy came over so that’s always a little awkward. But we all had a good time and ate lots of food! My mom made turkey, stuffing, corn, green beans with mushrooms, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, ham, and cranberry sauce. Plus we had all the cookies/candy I made and brought coupled with the cookies Ash made. It was quite a feast! After dinner, we had round one of presents for Bryson, Ryan and Mark and Erik since they all had to leave. Peter, me, and my parents waited for Ash and Drew to come back and we all opened presents together. I was finally able to give my mom the extra 4 place settings that I got her for her good china! They are a discontinued pattern of Noritake so it was hard to get a hold of but I found some online via Ebay. She loved them! We got my dad a shirt, cashews which he loves, and a 3 Stooges calendar for 2008. Peter and I got tons of great presents too—sweaters, fleece pants and top, towels, a snowman fleece blanket, santa soap dispenser, Will & Grace season 1, a cup to match one I have that I’ve been looking for and pitcher that matches those, a griddle, and much more. After presents, Peter and I gathered up a lot of our stuff, putting it in bags, etc to get ready to pack it in the in the morning. Then we sat down with my mom to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life”…we do every year and it usually ended up being my mom and me. Ashley goes to Drew’s at that time now to open presents with his parents and my dad is always asleep haha. We didn’t make it through the entire movie though since we had to get up early. 

My mom's new fake tree that isn't wide enough haha, but still pretty plus tons of presents!

The beautiful table that I set:

Drew trying to teach Wendy how Ryan's new toy works...

Wendy and her two boys:


The boys rough housing:

This one is dark but I think it's cute of Bryson and his grandma:


More rough housing:

My nephew Bryson doing who knows what:

You can tell Ash is so happy with my gift to her haha.  Actually this year I did another gag gift for her before her real gift and it was angels that matched the choir boys that I gave her last year.  Growing up we hated those decorations and my mom was going to throw them out so I took them to give to Ashley haha.

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