Yes here it is May, the middle even, and I’m finishing up writing about Christmas. C’est la vie. It’s been a busy spring. But back in December, before we had the terrible winter, we had a lovely visit to my dad’s sister and her family. We got a hitch put onto our minivan and bought a rack for the back that can hold stuff and so we put large rubber bins on the back of the car to hold presents and other gear, leaving most of the interior space for us. It worked out very well. We wrapped the bins in trash bags, strapped them down with ratchet straps and put 7 people (including three car seats) into an 8 person car. It was a fairly comfortable ride and the rack in the back didn’t change much except when going over really bumpy spots. We stopped at our usual haunt on the way there and on the way back, catching a swim both directions and dinner at a local Italian restaurant.

I’m going to let the pictures do a lot of the talking. First up, the classic holding your stocking in front of the fireplace picture! The kids all love to play with all the little Christmas decorations at my aunt’s house.

After we settled in early on Christmas eve, we headed to church for the service and then went to my cousin Sue’s house for a yummy dinner and some gift exchanges.

Here’s Abby, not feeding Zeke.

Here’s my lovely aunt and cousins!

My kids are no longer the only little ones in the family! Ewan’s got a buddy just a few months older than him now! Here’s them trying to sit together.

Here is Ewan stealing her book, because we got her each one of our kids favorite board books, so he wanted it too.

Josie and Celia needing some snuggle time with Layla.

The delicious spread which has graciously gotten more vegetarian over the years, at least the years we show up 🙂

My dad and cousin Sue who was hosting us all.

My dad and uncle.

Most everyone at the party, it was tough to get everyone’s cooperation to get in the photo, and clearly I needed it raised up some more. But still we’re (almost) all in there.

After eating and opening, we head back home to sleep before Christmas morning! Here we have the girls opening up their santa gift this year, tickets to Frozen on Ice! Santa should have rescheduled the snow storm for us too!

Photo in front of the tree before Ally went off to a mission trip so we could get us all in there.

After gifts and breakfast, we go for the stockings! Here’s my dad opening his.

My aunt and Ewan.

Phoebe the cat, who has sadly passed a few months ago. She was very excited about getting her photo taken.

My uncle and Ewan. Everybody likes to hold the baby!

And our final heading on our way home shot. The time always goes by too quickly. At this point we will hopefully see them again sooner now than it’s been since Christmas!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2015 at 9:17 pm by Jen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.