Christmas in Minnesota

I'm thankful for these new toys to keep the boys occupied outside while I picked up the Christmas mess and packed us for Minnesota.

Graham was soooo excited.  He's not one to write anything down, and he made a written list.  I had to take a picture of it.

We were heading for extreme cold.  Yikes.

Once again, we were thankful for those headphones.  

It was an uneventful, but long trip.  We got there and the boys wanted to do their ceremonial run down the hill to the back of Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We got to the business of opening gifts pretty much right away.

Uncle Bryan and Aunt Tess gave us laser tag guns.  So fun!

We braved the bitter cold almost every day.

Excuse this over-exposed picture.  I had the ISO set too high but still think it's a cute one.

The rest of the pictures look like this.  I think he was getting cold.

Still sad, and cold.

Sweet Mary.

I love those cold, rosy cheeks.

Elsa and Graham won the "stay out the longest award."  Their cheeks were frozen.

And his eyelashes were frozen.

Chris and I had a Caribou Coffee date.

Graham got to build his Lego.

We had a date with Bryan and Tess.

The boys were tired of shopping.

My mom has the old Clue.  I love that herring bone floor and lace dining room and the floral wallpaper in the kitchen.

Tarrah and her family came to visit us.  We've been friends for 17 years.  That's a long time.  She's known me a long time.

I'm hoping there's a marriage in there somewhere.

I love that Samuel is watching a movie with a stuffed lamb.

This was taken on the night before we left.  We knew it was time to head back to Texas ;)

This is my attempt to get a picture with all of them, but it was just before we were leaving.  Samuel was too sad to smile.  Poor boy.  He loves his cousins.

He couldn't even smile for the silly picture.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner on the way home.  It was a perfect dinner stop.  The fire was roaring, the restaurant was empty, and we laughed and laughed.  Actually, Chris made them laugh and laugh.

He knows just how to make them laugh.

This is him showing him the scene from Vacation where Clark Griswold falls asleep at the wheel.  And it's a picture of Nathan picking his nose.

A game of checkers and we were off to our hotel to crash.

Hotel antics.

I've been known to enjoy a hot dog at a gas station every now and then, but I refuse to eat the beefy mac + cheese pizza.

And then we were home.  Home sweet home.  With my warm bath and hot tea and electric blanket.  I am blessed.