What a fantastic christmas

This Christmas was such a fantastic, great Christmas. We went to California for 8 days and it was great! We were supposed to leave Monday morning but changed our plans and left Sunday evening. We got there about 11:00 at night. By the way it was raining like crazy for the last 2 hours of the drive. There were accidents all along the highway. Since I was the driver, I was praying that I would not get into one as well. It was crazy driving! Anyways. My brother and his wonderful wife Sassafrass (cassie) had already been there and so I was quite anxious to get there and be with them. They live in Washington state and we don't get to see them that much. The fun part about leaving Sunday night is that nobody was expecting us. So I made a couple random calls just to make sure they were still up, so that we didn't have to get anybody out of bed upon our arrival. We did lots of hanging out and relaxing. The cousins had a blast. And the best part was that they all got along and there was no fighting, and we, the adults didn't hear any of them the entire week. Grma and Grpa did an amazing addition onto their house. They now have this huge room upstairs for about 20 people to sleep in. It was great! All the kids and Sass and Aaron (my brother) slept in that room. They were good sports to do that. It didn't sound fun to me sleeping with 10 kids, but they did it! Friday my parents and sister cocoa (jodi) arrived for the weekend. That was great also. Nonni and poppy were there and Great Grma and Grpa. It was such a great time. Christmas was wonderful. Although it took forever to open presents. Our family tradition is to let the youngest open a present first and then we go to oldest. We keep doing this until everyone is done unwrapping presents. So you could imagine with 20 people how long it took. Christmas morning was eventful with Cocoa stabbing herself in the leg with my Aaron's new knife. She was trying to help Cody open a present (you know the wrapping that nobody can get through!) and the knife slipped and made a clean slit through her leg. I might add it was the leg that she had recently had knee surgery on and grueling physical therapy. My dad took her to the emergency room while the rest of us opened presents. We had quite a busy house but such a fun one! Twenty people and I thought it would be crazy, but it wasn't at all. It was an absolutely wonderful christmas that I will remember and my children for a very long time.
I don't have pictures yet. When I get them loaded I will put them on here.