Packing Up . . .

We've had a wonderful time, but it's time to go home. The time flew by, as usual!

We got here Sunday afternoon around 4:15 , having left at 8:00 in the morning (an amazingly early time for us, LOL). We were worried about snow, which is why we left early, but that turned out to be a false alarm, thankfully. It flurried starting in Cumberland, MD until we got into Ohio, but the road was never bad. We made one stop, for lunch, in Cambridge, OH. I did need to go to the bathroom earlier, but it was cold and snowy, it's a hassle to get everyone in and out, and we were listening to a good book on CD, so I just held out. The book we were listening to was another one by Richard Peck called On the Wings of Heroes. It's about a boy growing up in a small town in the U.S. during World War II, and it was a interesting look at life during that time. We all really enjoyed it, and it certainly made the miles fly by.

Monday the kids were all excited to play out in the snow. My parents only had a few inches on the ground, but it was more than in Virginia or Texas! We had brought a huge garbage bag full of snow stuff, so we got everyone dressed up and out they went. For a few minutes anyway. It was quite cold, and Grace and Emily both had troubles keeping their gloves on, so they were not fans of the cold or the snow. The boys stayed out awhile longer, but the ones who stayed out the longest were Anna and Amy, the Korean girl who is living with my parents for a year, along with her mom, while her dad finishes his PhD back in Korea. They sledded down the little hill in the yard for such a long time!

Dan and Melinda took Nathan, Grace, and Emily for a special trip to Trader Joe's, and then out to lunch at Marion's Pizza. Nathan thought it was good, but too expensive for our family, LOL. Then Dad took Dan and the boys to an AOG party at a local restaurant to watch the USAFA bowl game. The Falcons won, and everyone had more pizza, so a good time was had by all. The Air Force song broke out several times, it was reported! Jonathan was the only boy who decided he didn't really want to go, so he stayed home with all us girls.

Tuesday Dan and Melinda, going for "super-uncle-and-aunt" status, took Nathan and Luke to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3-D. They all enjoyed the movie, although none of them were that impressed by the 3-D part of it. I got a haircut in the afternoon, and then we all went to Youngs for dinner and ice cream. This was the first time Caleb could have ice cream, and he sampled a few flavors, but he ended up getting green apple sorbet, just like old times.

Wednesday my parents took Caleb and Jonathan out to breakfast at Mimi's, to make up for them not getting to see the movie. They thoroughly enjoyed chocolate chip pancakes (Jonathan) and pancakes in the shape of a mouse (Caleb). Melinda and I went mall-walking in the morning, bringing back good memories of my moms' walking group back in Colorado. Then we came home and I made dough for sugar cut-out cookies. I tried a new recipe because I didn't have one I loved. This one . . . well, I didn't love it either, LOL. I had such a hard time making it not too sticky! Even after chilling it for awhile, it was still fluffy, so I added more flour and powdered sugar. That helped some, but the kids had quite a hard time rolling it out. We had to use quite a bit of extra flour as well as helping most of the kids. Ten kids . . . sticky dough . . . tons of flour. I think you can imagine the scene! Finally all the dough was used up, and the cookies were baked. Bob actually called while the last batch was cooking, and I totally got distracted and forgot to take them out. Whoops! Those ones were pretty crispy! After dinner we decorated the cookies. That was another sticky mess, LOL. After much frosting and sprinkles were used, the cookies were finally done, and we could actually clean up the mess! They did taste good--and hopefully the memories were good too!

Today Melinda, Mom, and I went out to brunch at First Watch. After we got home and got the kids fed lunch, we had a little party to celebrate Emily's 4th birthday. Her actual birthday isn't until Jan. 4, but hey--it's always a good day to have a party with all your cousins! They all had princess cupcakes, and then they got to hit down a princess pinata. The boys enjoyed that part, LOL. For our present, I made a photo book on Snapfish for Emily--"My Cousin Book". It had pictures from the time we were all together in July, plus some other pictures of us. It was fun to make! I also got a great gift idea from an old Family Fun magazine. A mom had written in about how she had a big extended family who were all spread far apart, so she got full-length photos of everyone and put the photos on magnetic photo paper, and then cut around the figures. I did this with out family, making a set of magnetic dolls for the fridge. I also typed out our names and put them on magnets as well, so Emily can match our names and pictures. The dolls turned out so cute! My girls really liked them too, so maybe I'll have to make our own set. I got the magnetic photo paper from Amazon. I thought it was a really good idea for family members who don't see each other all that often!

So now I'm pretty much done packing up, except for last-minute stuff tomorrow morning. I doubt I'll get up anywhere as early as I did when we left Virginia--I'm hoping we can get out of here by 9:30! We do want to get back so we can go to the L's annual New Year's Eve party, so we will be motivated to get out the door! Wow--hard to believe 2010 is already done! We're looking forward to what the Lord has for us in the new year!