While it was fun to be at
home for the holiday season, as you will see we had plenty going on throughout
the month. We enjoyed the Christmas
season by celebrating 3 times (Christmas holiday, Vandervaarts visiting,
Shafers / Cyphers visiting). We also had
plenty of holiday parties and took the girls to their first Colts game!
For the Christmas holiday, we went to mass on Christmas
Eve and Allison did a great job singing in the choir. We invited Mark, Mom, Chris, Frank and Jan
over to our house afterwards and enjoyed some food and drinks. We watched some videos and pictures of the
girls. On Christmas, the girls were very
excited and were up at 6AM. Santa
brought iPads for the girls along with a Lego set and some other toys and
clothes. Mom stopped by to see the girls
and we went over to the Wahman’s house later in the afternoon. We shot some hoops and enjoyed a pitch-in
meal prepared mostly by Jan. Debbie had
to work on the 26th, so I took the girls to a bounce place and out
to lunch. On the 27th, my mom
watched the girls as Deb and I both had to work.
On the 28th, Laura’s family arrived at Mom’s
place and we all opened presents on that Friday evening. We went back over on Saturday morning and
stayed all day long. We watched the ND
football game along with played some euchre on Saturday evening. We all went to mass on Sunday morning and
then we were onto our 3rd Christmas…
Julie & Kyle arrived with their family around 1PM on
the 30th and we all settled in for a fun 3 day visit. Randy and Anna arrived around 4PM. The kids played together pretty well even
with their age differences and we had fun watching the Colts game on Sunday
night. We went to the Children’s Museum
on the 31st and it was very busy.
We got a chance to show them a few exhibits and ride the carousel. We got to celebrate NYE in the dark as we
lost power when the kids went to bed, so we found ourselves in the basement with
flashlights in one hand and a drink in the other. Our power came back the next morning and we
opened presents. Kyle wanted to watch
Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, so we enjoyed watching them play well and win.
Sarah’s Things of the Month
Sarah
got her chance to participate in the Christmas program for the first time. The kindergarteners were very excited and did
very well. We had the Campbell girls (Zoe
is in kindergarten) over to play one Saturday. Allison’s Thing of the Month
Allison had her First Reconciliation and her comment
afterwards was, “It wasn’t that bad.”
She did very well preparing and knowing what she was supposed to be
doing. She also participated in her 3rd
Christmas program and sang very well. Allison
went to Ruth’s birthday party where they took some fun pictures and decorated
shirts.
A few more items from this
month:
- We went to Sullivan’s Hardware again this year for our tree and to visit Santa. We visited Santa with the Sniadeckis and went over to their house afterwards for dinner.
- I met up for lunch with the basketball crew from my Hurco days. It was fun to catch up with those guys and laugh about some of our times together.
- Deb scored some tickets from work for the Colts vs. Cowboys game so we took the girls to their first game. Allison was intense on each play and Sarah enjoyed looking at the program. Sarah did get on the big screen during the 2nd quarter which was pretty awesome!
- Debbie had 3 Christmas parties to go to this month. She went to one with the mom’s in our neighborhood, one with some moms from church and one with Tracy, Diane, Liz, Amy and Shannon.
- Deb and I spent a Saturday night going to a holiday party for her work and then heading over to the Bassett’s for their annual Christmas party. Never fun to leave one party early or come to another late, but we had fun.
- We celebrated Erin Anderson’s birthday with the Andersons, Watkins and Foulkes at Cooper Hawk. While we enjoyed some wine tasting, Jeremy and I eventually had to order some bourbon.
- I met up with Lawton, Bleill, Anderson and Foulke at Ale Emporium for a few beers and to catch up.
- Debbie and I had a dinner date at Sullivan’s steakhouse. It was very busy, but that place has quickly become one of our favorite places to enjoy a steak.
- I spent a few hours one weekend changing all of the brass hinges and door knobs upstairs and in the basement to a statin nickel finish. It took about 30 minutes per door and we switched out 13 doors.