What a Christmas!

So we're still in the middle of celebrating Christmas 2008. So far it's been a great Christmas with lots of family, love and gifts.

This Christmas didn't start out too well, though. Just to bring you up to speed... it was snowing here in Oregon. The day before we were supposed to leave, I found a leak in our big picture window in the family room. To no avail, it wouldn't stop leaking.... until Brad chiseled ice off of the roof that was touching the siding. Finally, the drips started to cease. But that was on Christmas eve day. So before we left the house, Brad put up a tarp on the floor to catch any water. We had a friend come over while we were gone to see if the buckets needed to be changed.

We finally got to the airport at about 3:00pm. The ride was uneventful. The lines weren't horrendous. We got through security within an hour. We got to our gate and our flight was scheduled to go out at 6:30p... but it was running about a half hour late. Needless to say, it was even later than that. After being told that our flight was leaving first before the Phoenix flight, jumping in line, then jumping out of line, we finally go on board the plane at 7:45p. The flight closed its doors at 8p. After that the pilot came out and said that "folks, we need to go through deicing, twice, and we're currently fourth in line." That meant we had another hour to wait. We finally got off the ground at 9:01pm. We didn't get to my dad's house until after 11:30p. Ugh! But Amelia was such a trooper. She slept on the plane and she slept on the car ride home.

Christmas day just lazed around the house. We couldn't get away from the snow, as it snowed there all day. We had a nice dinner and had to wait until the next day to open our Christmas presents... so we thought.

The day after Christmas we went into Reno and went to Cabela's. What an amazing store. Everything you could think of and more. In addition, there were a bunch of stuffed animals. See the pictures below. Brad had a great time looking through the store. Amelia found a chair she liked. She even had some of Auntie Nat's kettle corn... mmmm, tasty! Then we took a driving tour of Reno and went home to have some yummy spaghetti and meatballs. Jay is a chef and made a heck of a dinner. We waited for Deanne, Vince and Lilly to get home, but they got caught in a traffic jam across the Sierra Nevadas. We were supposed to have dinner with them and open up presents, but they made it home after 10p.

On Saturday, we all got together, had left over spaghetti and then opened up presents. Amelia got clothes, shoes and some toys. It was a nice Christmas. That night we left the two cousins with Grammy and Papa and the adults went out to dinner. We went to Thai and it was so YUMMY!

Then Sunday magically appeared and it was time to go home. Our stay in Dayton was over. We got to the airport in plenty of time. The flight left a few minutes late, but it wasn't HOURS late. We even got our own row together again, as we had an open seat beside us on our flight to Reno. Amelia enjoyed the flight back because it was during the day time and she had a window seat. The one thing we didn't enjoy about Southwest was the fact that there was no preboarding for families. They got to board after the A group, but before the B group. Interesting. In any case, we got to the car and my battery was dead. Dead as a door nail, dead. I didn't shut my car door all the way and the dome light depleted the battery. I was sending Brad over to the shelter phone to call for assistance when the assistance just happened by the car. So he gave us a jump and we were on our way home.

We picked up Emmy, did laundry and then opened our Christmas presents from each other and from MoMo and Vern and our neighbors. Amelia got lots of cool clothes, a Sit & Play stage, books, a music cube, a learning purse and more.

I say we're still in the middle of our Christmas because on New Years we're celebrating Christmas with Brad's family, so there are still more packages to give and receive and of course, more pictures to take. But in the meantime, enjoy the pictures. I'll be back later with video of Amelia in front of her Sit & Play stage. She loves that thing!