Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Busy Christmas Week!

Because of our baby due in less than six weeks, John and I had decided this fall that we would stay home for Christmas. We thought this would make the Christmas season less busy and more restful:) Well, we did stay in town, but instead made our Christmas week really busy:

On the Tuesday before Christmas, we closed on a house! The above picture is our first meal in our new house. The house is in great shape and was move-in-ready. The former owners had made everything clean and neat and ready for us. They even left curtains for us - so everything was ready for new occupants. This was a really good thing, because our first night there on Wednesday would find not only us, but 11 members of our family in the house!On Wednesday, with the help of many friends from church and my family who had arrived the night before, we moved everything out of our apartment and into our new house!
We had worked up an appetite by lunch time and had our first big meal with friends in our new house.
By evening, most of the boxes were unpacked, our new table and chairs had been assembled and we were feeling comfortably settled in the house. We enjoyed chili and cornbread for supper and had a nice evening with my family. John's family arrived later that night, so we had a lot of fun Christmas eve with both sides of the family playing our favorite game this year Ticket to Ride (Both US and German on different tables - the German version is even more fun as it has additional ways to earn points!)

After many games, we were ready for some exercise and so headed outside where my sisters had made snow people to represent me and John and our future children! I somehow doubt though that we'll have 15 midget children!

We paused for a group picture before the walk. Some neighbors seeing us all assembled probably wondered how many people had moved into that house!

The walk didn't remain calm for long! Soon almost everyone was involved with a snow ball fight. There was just enough snow along the road to refuel occasionally.

The walk felt really nice!

We sang some Christmas songs that evening and opened our gifts before bed.

Christmas day brought more good food as everyone pitched in to make a wonderful turkey dinner.

On Saturday, my brother Luke and his family arrived to bring even more energy and fun to our gathering. We enjoyed some Indian food prepared by John and his dad for lunch!

Our nieces and nephews are growing up fast so it was great to see them once again!

So, that was our week of Christmas! It was definitely a bit of a whirlwind week. My family had to leave early on Sunday and we spent a lot of time Sunday and Monday sleeping and relaxing. Now, John is back to work and we're enjoying spending a few more days with his family before they have to go back home.