Christmas Afternoon 2008

After we were all ready, we headed down to my grandparent’s house in Vista – which is about an hour and fifteen minutes south from my parents. We hit quite the rainstorm on the way, and for awhile I couldn’t see in front of the car more than a foot. Thank goodness Andy was driving! He is a much better driver than me. Once we were there, everyone found a seat and more presents were passed out. We have the same tradition of opening from youngest to oldest at my Grandparents, just with more people in the mix. Daja and my cousin Bobbi even got presents for their soon-to-arrive babies.

My grandma also had a smorgasbord of cold cuts set out on the table, and as soon as my kids were done opening presents they both made their way over. The first picture of Charlie smiling is when he is asking for more food. The second, with Lynnae, is when she asked for more food too... And apparently he didn’t like sharing my food-passing-out abilities with her. My uncle Chuck and most of his family were there as well, so we got to introduce the kids to more new relatives.

The toy of the day was the Leapster. Adam, Brinly and Lynnae all spent quite a bit of time on their Leapsters. To be fair, Braxton also enjoyed his DS quite a bit... Although he became frustrated when I was able to score a much lower age then him on Brain Age. (I finally let him know that I had played it before... A lot.)

Evin and Lynnae had a lot of fun playing spies – but I’m going to type that up separately! And the toddlers all enjoyed some racing time outside, which will also be a separate post.

After everyone was ready to go, (I had previously crashed on the family room floor for over an hour, so I wasn’t feeling so tired anymore,) our family left to head over to our new hotel. We stayed down in Vista so that we could wake up and head over to Legoland with Keira and Daja’s families the next day. We decided to take a quick detour to Jack in the Box because I realized I was hungry... And Andy and I got shakes. We decided to let Lynnae have a shake too. She drank about half of it and then told us she felt sick and asked if she had to finish it! I think we finally managed to hit her sugar overload... But I figure if there is a time to let kids experience that sensation, its on their birthday or Christmas! Since then she has told me at least five times, “Do you remember the time that I asked if I could throw away my shake? That was weird!”

In the hotel Andy flew around his new helicopter, and the kids kept holding their hands out so that he could attempt to land on them. They were very happy... We all were. It was a great Christmas!