A Very Merry Christmas

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know how our holiday went. Christmas eve was wonderful. We spent the whole day together as a family, well almost. I had a few last minute gifts to pick up that morning, ya ya I know I waited till the last minute, but you all know my motto...dont do today what you can put off till tommorrow J/K. In this case there was no tommorrow. After I got home we ordered in some pizza and sat down played some games with the kids. After Clark went down for a nap we all made gingerbread houses. I think me and Kalee's is the best, but Joel disagrees, he thinks his is far more structuraly sound. I just told him that is not something engineers really consider in gingerbread land and its all about the display. Later that night we had dinner, ice cream and watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Before the kids went to bed we let them open their traditional Christmas eve present. I dont think they have caught on yet that they get the same thing every year, pajamas. We wrote a note to Santa and left him some brownies and some carrotts for the reindeer. Joel told Kalee that Santa prefers brownies. You could tell the kids were pretty excited and it took them a while to get to sleep. Joel realized he did not wait long enough when Lily wondered in while he was watching TV and eating Santa's brownies. Joel just told her he was hungry and together they put some more on the plate and put it back by the fireplace. It was very cute.

Christmas morning was pretty much what you would expect. The kids were up an at em' at 0600 so we got a pretty early start on the day. We opened up stockings and presents and I made Joel his tradiotional waffle breakfast. Later that day we had Grandma and cousins over for our ham dinner. It was fun, but a lot of work. Don't you miss the days when Christmas was relaxing and all you had to worry about was what toys to play with in which order. We did webcam with Joel's family and the kids got to show off their toys. Kalee and Lily love their Geselle wedding dressups, karoake machine, Hannah Montana guitar, Easy Bake oven, and a whole lot more. Clark loves to destroy his train set and likes all his trucks and planes. We are considering Joel's lapotop he got for his deployments his Christmas gift and Joel gave me the sweetest gifts this Christmas when he did the 12 days of Christmas to me.

This morning we decided to get up early to get a new Christmas tree. We hit the stores early and found some good deals. I got my tree and Joel stocked up on a couple thousand more lights, and some lawn light up decorations. He is out of control. He told me he was going to buy more, but he is running out of outlets, so we should move to a house that has more. We are now just going to try and take it easy for a few days to recoup from the nonstop action lately.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a happy new year!!!!

Oh, and the story with the video at the bottom is that when Joel's family came out and visited us recently, Joel showed them all his plane. Terry having the Bragg family...problem, had to use the restroom and couldn't make it to the building, so Joel opened up the bathroom on the plane. We thought it would be nice to get her something to commemorate the event.

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

You know, it just comes quicker every year that goes by. It seems like just a year ago Joel and I were celebrating our first christmas together, and now we have a bunch of kids. As you can tell Joel has a bit of a problem. If there were a christmas lights anonymous group, I would sign Joel up. We all love this time of year, even though we miss the snow and ambience it creates. Quite a bit has gone on since I last posted. Joel's parents and Lindsay came and visited us. It was tons of fun and the kids loved having thier grandparents and auntie come and play. Joel's best friend Grant also came and stayed with us for a few days. Those two are a bunch of goofs. We celebrated Thanksgiving at Grandma's house here in California, we all had a good time and overindulged ourselves as customary. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to the midnight showing of Twilight with a bunch of friends. I didn't get home until 3 that morning...but hey, you have to make sacrfices for these vitally important events. The movie was good, but I think they could have made it better. Joel likes to make fun of me for it.

Here is a couple of pictures of us decorating our tree. After 8 years of dedicated service, I am proud to say that this will be the last year for this tree. Its been a wonderful tree and withstood many a batterings by overexcited children.

I forget to say that on the 11 of November I got to go up in a KC-10! The did a spouse flight and it was pretty cool...atleast when I was able to get in the cockpit and the sit in the back of the airplane and watch them refuel. I am amazed at what Joel does. I have no idea how he keeps all those buttons straight.

I found this in our camera...thought you might enjoy!