New Years

We had a great New Years with some good friends of ours, the Hewards. Cameron and their son Jarren are actually the ones who started the "family being friends" thing. Great family! They have 3 boys the same ages as our 3 oldest. We had them over for dinner, games and fun! We had decided that it would be fun to have a game of dodgeball out at the tennis courts. We happen to live a few steps away from the courts. It was perfect for dodgeball. I bought the balls and I am so glad that the balls I bought were nerf type. Otherwise there would have been a few of us walking away with some serious bruising. I have to say that my team won!!! We played 4 games, and might I add it was quite cold! Anyways, we split the teams up evenly and went for it. My team won the last game. It was me and Camerons friend Deaven left. He and I were hucking balls at each other and I won by barely hitting the bottom of his shoe. It was so much fun. I paid for it later, but it was fun and well worth it. We came in and played nerts and ate more. Then at that certain hour we went outside and started lighting the firworks! That was fun!!! Although me, Rachel and Mady only made it about 5 minutes and had to come in, but it was great. It was quite the boy thing!!!
Such a great time with good friends! Thankyou Hewards for a great New Years Eve!!!
Kyle took pictures and I will have to post them when I get them. He got a video of me falling and Cameron dragging me off the court. NOT FUNNY!!! I will probably not post that. There is also another one of me stuffing the balls up my shirt. Hey a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!!! I couldn't let them get the balls and most of my teammates were out! Had to put them somewhere.

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.