The most wonderful time of the year. I definitely struggled adjusting to the cold this year. It doesn't take long for you to forget what it's like. And to go from beach weather to 9°F (-12°C) is quite a shock on the system. My trip was a lot less eventful than the last trip home. Most of my friends were still at uni working hard for finals. I intended to make a trip to Ames for the Iowa vs. Iowa State men's basketball game (which turned out to be a pretty great game), but considering the freezing cold weather I decided not to go. Other than that I did the very usual Christmas festivities.
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| Making Christmas cookies. One of my FAVOURITE traditions :) |
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| Only a small portion of the colouring that happened with the girls. |
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| Who knows what was happening? |
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| SNOW!!!!!! |
I did my best to spend plenty of time with all the kids. They are what makes it so hard being so far away from home.
I babysat Grady and Ada one day while Jess and Mitch were at work, and Maddox and my parents joined us later that night so Christmas shopping could be done. Ada, Grady and I went to the Family Museum in Bettendorf for some fun during the day.
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| I remember this from my childhood :) |
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| Just the man for the job :) |
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| The workshop was pretty neat :) |
When Jess and Mitch got home that night they announced to us all that they were having a girl. It's going to be so hard for me in April when the baby is born and I have to wait to meet her :(
Another night I took Alexa, Avery, Maddox and Grady to see Frozen. My mother was nice enough to help me out with this one. About 5 minutes in Maddox turned to me and said "I don't want to watch this. Can we go home?" Poor guy had to sit through the whole thing. The other 3 enjoyed it though.
Next my family went out to Osaka to celebrate my 21st birthday 2 months late. Fun was had by all. Except for Mitch. There was freezing rain which meant his babysitter wasn't able to make it. He was definitely missed.
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| Mom took the picture. |
The chef cut up some egg and took turns throwing it at each of us with the goal being us catching it in our mouths. I don't often have the ability to embarrass my sisters; the moments when I do are always precious to me...
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| They might hate me for this... |
And then all the lights in the restaurant went off, a disco ball light and some music turned on, and everyone sang happy birthday to me. And I was presented with dessert, which was very delicious.
After we headed out for drinks, but due to weather and lack of parking we just ended up at Jess's for a while and had an early night.
The rest of my trip mostly involved Christmas. My Grandma Margaret wasn't sure what to get me, because just giving me money is difficult because of exchange rates and there's only so much I can pack in my bag, so for a Christmas present we just went shopping one day. It was fun, and we found heaps of great deals :)
The rest of my trip mostly involved food, family and presents, which is pretty much as good as it gets. We had Christmas with my Dad's side of the family.
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| This family gets bigger every holiday! |
Christmas morning was pretty normal procedure for my family. Once my sisters and their family have opened all their presents at their own houses they come over to my Mom and Dad's. We have brunch, we open presents, and we proceed to spend the rest of the day hanging out, watching movies, playing with new toys, eating all of the leftovers from brunch and ALL of the Christmas cookies. We did some playing in the snow this year.
I'm not a very big fan of snow. But I'm always up for one good day outside in it :)
Hot chocolate was made to warm up once we got inside. We relaxed most of the rest of the day, and put on a movie later for the kids while the
adults big kids played a game of our own. Then the night ended and everyone went to bed.
I said my goodbyes to my sisters and their families the next day. And that night enjoyed a bottle of wine and our freshly lit fireplace while I packed...
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| One of my favourite parts of winter |
I left for Sydney again the following day, but that's a whole other story to be told in a different post. For now I will leave you with this...
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| Merry Christmas!!!! |
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