Keep the Joy: Catching Christmas Up

We had a wonderful Christmas with both sets of family! I have included some pictures here of the great times. The first trip was to see my family, and have one day with just Woody and I to celebrate our anniversary. It was a great trip! We went up to the mountains to hike and the visibility was excellent, as you can tell from the photo.

We hiked a couple of hours, then went back into town, found a room and cleaned up to walk around the town and enjoy time just by ourselves! Of course, the hiking was great and pretty, but we did have to skirt around ice like this:

It made the hike quite a bit more interesting! But, the views and the good conditions on the other side of the mountain improved it all. Woody didn't have to carry me down the mountain with a broken leg, PTL!

Just the two of us eating breakfast together, with all the pretty decorations. We had a great Christmas with Mimi and Poppa, while picking up the kids to go back as the weather was reported to be turning bad through the mountains. However, we decided to stay another night instead of trudge back. It was a great decision. The next day we found out how good it was. I will always remember the drive back. Hundreds of cars had been stranded along the highway, conditions were still terrible but the scrapers had been through. We almost were hit one time and saw a lot of damaged vehicles. We stopped at a Mc Donalds to eat (not our first choice, but we needed food for us and the girls!). Here was some of the conditions we drove in.

We were just praising the Lord that we were not one of the stranded vehicles the night before. Wow, what a trip! The trip to Woody's parents was better weather and I'll have to pick that up in the next blog.

We cooked cookies for Santa. We decided he wanted peanut butter blossoms with Hershey kisses! Good choice!

One great memory was Christmas Eve where Woody had the good thought to fix a bonfire and grill out hotdogs and marshmallows with the girls. It was wonderful! We had some more healthy side dishes too, but the girls really loved this memory. It might have to become a tradition! Rosco thought it was great too!

Natalie pretending to cook the hotdogs!

The girls both woke up around 8am the next morning, although it took Natalie until about 11pm to sleep because she was so excited the night before. They had a blast eating breakfast, then opening stockings and gifts. I was excited for them.

I had to post this very meaningful gift Woody gave me. Natalie painted it! The ornaments are pictures of every Christmas we have had together as a married couple. Wonderful!