Christmas Vacation

Just thought I would recap our trip.  We got home late last night. 

Stephen is one of 8.  All of his siblings and their families went to the Thompson’s in Washington for Christmas, except for his brother.  Can I say that is A LOT of people, but it makes for A LOT of fun!!!

Grandma had a little craft project and then a gingerbread house to put together.  Let’s just say the house didn’t stay standing for very long.

Lael had a cute snowman cookie idea and then Janna had a yummy sugar cookie recipe, SOOO we had to make some of those.

Grandpa Don worked on his invention.

The men LOVE fishing at this pond, which is in the middle of an onion farm.  They came home one day announcing that it was frozen over.  Of course all the moms were a little leary, but we bundled up and checked it out.  It was clear water and you could see just how deep the freeze really was.

 

The Arizonians only had eyes showing …

 

We also went and saw this

and this

We went down to the Columbia River to feed the birds.  There were geese and ducks, but the favorite to feed were the seagulls up in the air.  The kids loved throwing the bread in the sky to see them catch it in flight.  The adults DID NOT like having the seagulls circling us over head with the chance of poop dropping.

Rebecca was able to swing in the tire swing that she has always loved.

Grandpa Thompson also treated the grandkids to games at Chucky Cheese.  In the end they all pooled their tickets together to get a giant kickball and clay.  The giant kickball was then used at the gym FOR kickball.  Rebecca will always remember it because she was beamed in the back with it by Nathan.  She went a flyin’.  Anyway, here is a picture from Chucky Cheese when Grandpa kept giving Jerrica coins to play this game.

 

All the women had a night out to a delicious Greek restaurant and then on another night all the adults went out to Tony Romas, except for Lael and Racquel who stayed home to babysit.  Thanks you guys!!!

We did a little photo shoot of the babies.

 

Settler’s of Catan and the Pirates of the Caribean dice game were played late into the night by the adults and older ones.  There was also A LOT of ping pong going on.  I think that Janie’s husband, Andrew is the undefeated champion though.  Here is Stephen and Jon playing doubles with someone.

We had a fun Christmas Eve party with yummy snacks.  Grandma Brenda got out her box of costumes for us to act out the nativity.  There was an elephant costume, so there WAS an elephant at the nativity.

  The Chimes were played

Every night we would head down to the church and play basketball.  It’s fun to have such a big family because there are enough people to actually play a game.  Janie is going to be a PE teacher and so one day we went down during the day to the church and played PE games.  That was a lot of fun for my kids.  It was also fun to just sit and chat with everyone.

There was only one problem with sooo many people – the sewer backed up!!!