We headed up to Minnesota the afternoon after Christmas to see my family. My brother had flown in from San Diego a few days prior, so it was nice to have the ENTIRE family together (dogs and all)!
MN had gotten record amounts of snow during December such that the deck fence was barely viewable because of 4-5' snow drifts! The dogs thoroughly enjoyed running around their huge yard and pouncing in the snow and on eachother. There wasn't a night that went by that they weren't exhausted at bed time.
My parents went over the top with (homemade) gifts for baby Shoe. I can't believe all of the time and effort they put into the gifts for his nursery. I'll make a dedicated post on it showcasing some of the wonderful items they made.
After opening gifts as a family on Sunday evening, we made the 3 hour drive to Wisconsin to see the grandparents. We are lucky that both my mom and dads parents live only a few minutes apart. We enjoyed my mom's homemade BBQs for lunch with Grandpa and my Aunt Sandy. Grandpa seems a bit lonely and it was hard on everyone not to have Grandma there. We went out to the grave site to put cross wreaths on Uncle Dave's and Grandma's graves. It's definitely most hard at Christmas time not having them around!
We spent the afternoon and evening at Grandma and Grandpa Nimtz's. My Uncle, Aunt, and one of my cousins (Abby) drove in from Appleton to see us. We had a great time being goofy and opening gifts. Grandma and Grandpa got a wonderful Bose wave system that I am sure they will enjoy listening to all of their music on. They also got our annual "Year in Our Shoes" book and a DVD of home videos from my cousin Jeff. I am sure they will love reliving all those memories!
The next two days back in Minnesota were pretty low-key. We enjoyed playing with our new gifts, teaching my parents "May I?" and eating dinner at Culvers while watching the dogs battle eachother all day. We ended the week with our traditional antlers photo [why is it that the dogs never want to cooperate?] before heading back down to Des Moines for one more trip to Hickory Park and one last night at Dave's parents.
The drive back was pretty brutal to Omaha with freezing rain, but we made decent time through Nebraska and eastern CO despite the high winds and blowing snow. We made it back safe and sound just in time to enjoy the countdown to New Years together.
No comments:
Post a Comment