Tuesday, December 29 - Friday, January 1, 2016
We had a great visit in Martinsburg for Christmas this year. We got to celebrate Everett's 4th birthday, eat, have our first Christmas with Griffin, eat some more, visit with Great Grandma Miller, eat again, shop the outlets, bounce at Monkey Joe's and open more gifts than we should have been entitled to. And did I mention we ate a lot??
We arrived late on Tuesday afternoon. Daniel, Charles, Andy and Jacob had a 3:50 date to see the new Star Wars movie. Emily and I stayed behind and visited with Laura, Alison, Everett and Griffin. I was in love with Griffin right away. He is just so precious and is such a good baby. Emily is big enough that I could really enjoy Griffin, unlike when Everett was born and she was still so little. After the movie we had party sandwiches and potato soup. Then the oldest cousins each stayed up to open one Santa gift each. Everett and Griffin had to head off to bed.
We were up early the next morning to go visit Great Grandma Miller. She is currently staying in a skilled nursing unit where she is being treated for some kind of systemic infection. She does not love it there, clearly, but she was looking pretty great and her spirits seemed good.
After our visit we went back home to open presents and get ready for the big evening meal - roast beef! The kids all got a couple of gifts from Santa and then gifts from Grandma/Grandpa and all the cousins too. Emily's favorite gifts included a new Grace American Girl Doll, Minecraft Lego's and a hot pink electric scooter!
The next day Daniel, Charles and Laura went to visit Great Grandma Gamble and Alison, Andy, Emily, Everett, Jacob and I all went to blow off some steam at Monkey Joe's bounce houses. To be clear, though, Alison, Andy and I did not bounce. We watched. :-) Jacob and Emily also got to make a special stop to spend some of their Christmas gift card money.
That afternoon, Daniel and I went to the outlets. Ahhh mommy's happy place. We did not buy a whole lot, but did find a few bargains. That night it was time to ring in the new year...at 9pm. I did a mini photo shoot of Griffin for Alison and he was sooo good. I could have posted 10 pics of him here, but I'll just post my favorite.
Later that night, Alison got the kids a NYE party pack complete with hats, horns and glow sticks and they were ready to get their party on! They had a blast...and we had to confiscate Everett's horn. HA! The evening also found many family members engaged in a knock-down, drag-out game of Flinch. Even Emily got in on the action and everyone had fun.
The next morning was New Year's Day and it was time to head home. It was a good thing too, because we all ate WAY too much. But it was a really great visit. Already looking forward to next year...and there were some discussions of everyone getting together before next Christmas too, so we're excited about that as well! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
We are still pretty well snowed in here in WV and school is cancelled again tomorrow. So we made the most of our family time and went back out into the snow. This time Dan and Paul made the kids an igloo from a big mound of snow. So that meant more wet clothes and boots. Our poor little dryer is working overtime! But we packed a lot of fun into our snowy Sunday.
