We had Thanksgiving with my family in Alpine which was a lot of fun! Colin, Kibby, and Jack and Peter and Tim were all there which of course made for a wild dinner! We invited Sabrina to spend the day with us and she graciously accepted and it was so great to have her with us that day. You'd think we would see more of Sabrina and Summer when we only live about 2 and a half hours away from each other but I guess life is busy. Imagine that??
Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving:
Here are my technology obsessed brothers...and we wonder where Clarke gets it!
My mom never disappoints! Beautiful!
Cute boys with their cute Grandma
As for Christmas this year, Clarke met Santa at a Spina Bifida support group activity at Boonodocks. It was so nice to talk with families who understand what we're going through with Clarke and who don't bat an eye when you start asking about catheters and bladder studies. It was a really fun night and Alex and I hit the jackpot in the arcade and won tons of tickets! Haha it was great.
After Alex finished finals we spent a few days hanging out at home and then we headed to Utah County where we saw Alex's grandparents (I guess not in Utah county but you know) and then we flew to Virginia to spend Christmas with Alex's family. Sabrina flew with us which was AWESOME! It was nice to have help with Clarke but also to catch up with her since we hadn't seen her in a while. Clarke did amazingly well on the flights. We had two layovers which was rough but he slept for a little while on the second flight and he was pretty darn happy on the other flights as well (as long as he had someone's ipod to play with - no joke - if he even sees an iphone in church, he'll burst into tears when we tell him it's not ours so he can't have it. Ridiculous.).
After arriving in Virginia, we proceeded to have an amazing week with Alex's family. It was the first time all of us had been together in a long time and it was SO fun for his family to spend an extended amount of time with Clarke. Clarke slept well the whole time we were there and he was just awesome (as usual). We went into D.C. a couple of times and went to the National Zoo. We met up with Amy, A.J. and Jane and my parents and Tim who were staying in NJ. It was super fun to see all of them and spend time with them! Denise and Mario were very generous and fed them two nights in a row. We had a great time being together.
As for Christmas, we got a ton of fun stuff from Santa and Alex's family. They were very generous but we mostly had a wonderful time just being together as a family. We wish we could see Alex's parents and Adam more often. It's hard to live so far away but we are very grateful that we got to spend such an amazing week with them!!!
After we flew home (Clarke did great on the way back as well), we had Christmas #2 with my family on New Year's day. We played stocking BINGO (a new tradition that I think we will continue on future Christmas eves) where we played Bingo and won stocking stuffer-type presents. For example, we won a small calzone maker. We've had some delicious calzones as of late. We also got really fun stuff from my parents and siblings at this Christmas. Clarke was pretty spoiled between the two Christmases. It was so fun to see him and Jack play together with their new toys. They are such cute cousins and we wish we saw their family more too. We had a great time being with family and laughing together. That's one thing my family is really good at - laughing. You can always count on it when we get together. I love that about us.
Overall, we a had a fantastic time this holiday season. I wish we had more to celebrate/ look forward to during the first few months of the new year. January is probably the most dreadful month of the year for me - ESPECIALLY since we moved to Logan. It has been snowing a ton and it just barely got above the negatives or single digits. It's freezing here and Clarke and I are freezing with it. My mom and I have daily conversations about our need to get out of this weather. Hopefully we can make it happen soon! I'm so done with this but I know it's just begun! Ahhh!!! Anyway, here are some pictures of Christmas:
Meeting Santa
Our lovely Nativity play on Christmas eve
Singing lots of Christmas hymns on Christmas eve - what a fun tradition!
Clarke's adorable pajamas!!!
Christmas morning!
Clarke riding the metro for the first time!
The Natural History museum
All of us at the Dulles Airport Air and Space museum. Awesome museum but even more awesome people.
Cousin love
Oh how I miss these girls. Love them!
Clarke playing with the kitchen my parents gave him for Christmas. He loves it! This is one of the rare moments when Clarke is just in his diaper. I don't know, we just don't do the no clothes thing. Maybe we're weird.
I don't have any pictures from our Christmas in Alpine which I am very sad about! Sorry to be so lame!
The end.
