January Fun!

On January 1^st, Aaron and I took off on a mini vacation to sunny California!  One of his friends was getting married in San Luis Obispo, so we thought we’d tack on a few days before the wedding to see a little bit more of California.  We stayed two nights in Monterey, right along the water.  The weather was perfect (mid 60’s)!  We tried out restaurants, walked everywhere and just relaxed.  Then we took off down the coastline towards the wedding festivities!  Along the way we stopped off at Pebble Beach for breakfast and to walk the grounds and we also took in the Pacific Coast Highway – wow, that road is very long and very windy, but the scenery is worth it!  The wedding was fun – we got to catch up with a lot of Aaron’s friends and stay at a very unique hotel, The Madonna Inn.  It was a great mini vacation!

The rest of January was very mild and much needed – after the holidays and our little vacation, we needed to take it down a notch. 

Here’s just a few more things that were fun this month…

• Addi started gymnastics again and is loving it!
• We celebrated my mom’s birthday with dinner at our house.  It’s so nice to be able to do this after so many years of her being in Wenatchee.
• Enjoyed watching the Seahawks win all of their playoff games!

A very late holiday recap!

This is way overdo, but here's the November and December update.

Between the holidays and getting our kitchen redone (a small flooding incident), blogging hasn’t been first on my priority list.  Sorry!  But we’re back and ready to update!

November

Cheeseballs for breakfast 

Gingerbread house

Thanksgiving in Sequim

This year we headed to Sequim for Thanksgiving and had a really good time!  Lots of food, saw the movie Frozen (the kids loved it) and watched Aaron’s cousin get engaged!  We were able to catch up with a lot of family – well worth the travels!!

December

Bedtime snuggles 

 

December wine tour with friends!

Christmas

Party #1 – Christmas at my mom and Jack’s

This was the first year in a very long time that my sister and her family, my brother and his family (and of course my family) all got together for Christmas in a long time!!  We ate a tremendous amount of delicious food, laughed a ton, watched the guys put together a fireplace for my parents and then watched Addison sing her heart out on the karaoke machine.  It was a lot of fun and really relaxing!

Party #2 – Christmas at my dad’s

Christmas at the log cabin is tradition!  Unfortunately there wasn’t any snow so the kids couldn’t sled, but they managed to find toys and chase each other around the house all morning.  Breakfast was great and watching the kids open gifts is always fun to watch.  And don’t forget the traditional White Elephant party at my sister’s 2 nights earlier – I guess this year’s theme was Duck Dynasty because there were 3 Duck Dynasty themed Chia pets roaming around, as well as a Duck Dynasty poster and picture frame!  It was a good time – LOTS and LOTS of laughs!

Party #3 – Christmas with Aaron’s parents

We started the evening off with a drive around town to look at lights – there wasn’t as many out because we celebrated after Christmas, but the kids loved it.  Next up was dinner and then opening gifts.  This is always a relaxed night, watching the kids open their gifts and get so excited!!

The best party – Ours in our home

For the very first time, we woke up at our own house Christmas morning!  And we even made it to a Christmas Eve church service.  It was fun wrapping the gifts up the night before and hiding them and even better watching the kids come out of their rooms the next morning.  Unfortunately, Aaron got strep throat Christmas Eve – he was still able to watch all the fun, but I felt really bad for him.  My mom and I took the kids to a movie on Christmas Day as well.  It was a great day and the kids had a fabulous time!