New Year's Eve

With Opa having surgery and being in the hospital and Oma still being somewhat weak from being sick, they both needed some help and that's where we spent the day.  With some of the other family out of town I spent a lot of time between the house and hospital, helping at home with cleaning and taking care of my mom and making sure she was alright nd then at the hospital making sure my dad was healing good.  It was great last minute to get a hold of Kira and her say they were at home and we were welcome to come over for the evening!  The kids had fun, and it was so great to sit and talk with Joey and Kira.

Opa

Opa had back surgery where they fused L3, 4, and 5.  He was in the hospital for a couple days and like usual because he is so amazing, he had a great recovery.  He was up walking around the first day and has walked every day since, building up the distance.  The Physical Therapist at the hospitals still remember him from his knee surgery and I think he is sticking to the same quick recovery.  He had a lot of pain the first day and miserable night but it slowly got better and he is so tough you would never know he was hurting that bad.  This must be where I get a some of my mental and physical toughness from!  I try not to show it often unless it needs to be shown and he is such an inspiration.

I couldn't help resist the awesome picture with the girls having a sleep over in Koya's room and both using their Christmas blankets with superman and batman.

Friends

It doesn't always work out to get all of us together, but we made it happen during Christmas break and Valarie was in town also.  The kids had so much fun at Kangaroo Zoo running around getting rid of a lot of energy, which left us adults time to sit and talk! 

Sledding

We have had so much snow this year it is AMAZING.  We have made it skiing a bunch, but have not been sledding as much.  We did have a fun day out here though.  We also watched Halle while the Robinson's went on a Christmas vacation.  Flash had a hard time leaving her alone, but they sure had fun playing.

Christmas time pictures

Christmas!

The joy on their faces is priceless.  I love to see it.  They are so excited for everything and I love that they believe in the spirit of Christmas still.  That true joy doesn't last forever.  Of course like usual they were spoiled, what do ya do?

Christmas Eve

Since we did our Family party earlier this year, we didn't plan a get together with everyone on Christmas Eve.  I had both Christmas Eve and Christmas off of work this year which was awesome!  We made our way down to see Margaret and Kirk and then to Oma and Opa's house to decorate cookies with them.  We also gave them a puzzle for Christmas that they can work on after Opa has his back surgery!  We also decorated gingerbread houses and Opa started a fire so Koya and I had to have a smore, but we only had tiny marshmellows!