Yeah for Vacations!!!!

Well this Christmas was a blast. I just so much enjoy spending time with my family and friends. Christmas Eve we always spend with my dad's side of the family and this year was no different. We began the festivities around 4pm with appetizer's and catching up. Then we had a wonderful dinner of beef and turkey, salad, party potatoes...basically all the trimmings. Then the best part of the night...PRIZES (presents)!!!! We actually play a game like white elephant, only we don't bring bad gifts. Funny gifts, yes, but we always make sure it is something useable. What we do is on your turn you roll two dice and depending on what you roll you can either take a present from the middle or you can steal from a neighbor or you have to put a present back. Once all the presents are gone we all go around one by one and open them. This has been a tradition for years and I know we all look forward to it! It is a guaranteed night of laughs. After our game we had dessert and then we all headed home to get ready for Santa.
Christmas morning I woke up early with Bryan and we went for a run. He had to run 12 miles so I decided to help him out and I ran two of those 12 with him. Then I headed home to get ready for the day. Then we headed to Bryan's parents for Christmas brunch. Skip and Jan made a great meal of pancakes, sausage, eggs, muffins and of course, champagne and OJ. :) Then we exchanged gifts and spent time snuggling Skip's new puppies. He got two mini dachsaunds (yep, just like Sarge and Lucy) and they are so cute. I am a sucker for puppy breath but Bryan nor Skip would let me take them home with us. Oh, well, maybe next time. Then we headed to Bryan's Grandma's. I love, love, love her. I think part of the reason is the first time I ever went to her house, my Grandma whom I was close with's passing was still very raw in my mind, and I walked into Bryan's Grandma's house and it smelled just like my Grandma's. I had to keep tears from welling up in my eyes (Bryan and I had just started dating and I didnt' want him to think I was weird). I remember thinking to myself that our Grandma's would have loved each other's company. They are very much alike. Anyway, I love visiting with her because she always has so many stories that are full of laughs, and the way the world was when she was my age. She is such a special lady. Well for Christmas, Bryan and I got her a puzzle that is acutally a map of the st. louis area, only it is a 4x6 mile radius around her old house on Missouri Ave. The middle piece of the puzzle is actually shaped like a house and that is her old address of the house where she grew up and then it spans out across the area. She likes to work puzzles so we thought this was perfect for her. She loved it. We also got her a big tub that is filled with candy that was around in the 1920s from Bryan's favorite store in Kirkwood, the Sugar Shack. She loves candy!! I guess we all know where Bryan gets it from.
After Grandma's it was time to head over to my parents house for Christmas. We had lunch/dinner which was wonderful as always and then Olivia kept announcing that it was "time to open presents!" So we all gathered in the living room to exchange gifts. We really got a lot of great things, but the best part is always watching Alex and Olivia open their gifts. My brother and I went in and got Alex a paintball gun only we gave him all his accessories first and pretended like we thought he got a paintball gun from Santa (he knows Santa isn't real, BTW, he is 10). So we waited until all the presents were opened and we started cleaning up and then we "found" a present hidden behind the tree. That was his paintball gun. He was so excited! He immediately hooked it up and went outside with Uncle Steve and his dad to shot at some trees. Olivia "LOVES" and "OH MY GOSH" about everything she opens; even clothes! And Melis had to take Olivia's picture with every present she got.
After dessert and playing my dad's new Beatles Rockband (yes, my dad asked for and received Beatles Rockband) we headed home. My dad took Bryan and I home so he could pick up Sarge and Lucy to watch since Bryan and I are leaving tonight for Colorado with Shayna and Aaron. Once home I finished packing and waitied anxiously for Shayna and Aaron to pick us up. Once they arrived we loaded up the truck and headed on our way. Shayna and I watched Twilight and then slept for awhile. We hit a small blizzard in Kansas that was really scary (I think it was for me because Bryan was driving and I was nervous for him). We ended up having to stop in Goodland, KS because there was a whiteout near Denver and they were closing the highways. Apparantly what they do is they start closing exits and getting people off the road and once that exits hotels are full they close the next exit and just keep moving back. So, we stayed at a Super8. We got a good nap in and then headed to dinner at Crazy R's bar and then went to Wal-Mart to get a few things, a liquor store to get materials to make White Russians (that's what the boys wanted to drink that night), and headed home. We drank and played games and had so many laughs then headed off to bed.
Aaron woke us up at 6am the next morning and he was already in his truck with it running ready to go. So we threw on some clothes and headed out the door on our way to Breckenridge. The drive was only four hours and it was beautiful!
So here we are in Breckenridge. We spent the day wandering around the town waiting for our room to be ready. We went to a few sports bars so the boys could watch their football and went in some shops and got our ski's. Once checked into our room we unpacked and Bryan and I went down to the fitness center to get in a run. Bryan ran 6 and I did 2. While we were running Shayna napped and Aaron cooked dinner. We ate a great dinner of baked shrimp and chicken pasta, with garlic bread and salad and then at 8:30 we all headed off to bed. We were tired from our days journey.
So now it is Monday morning and Bryan is out doing a run and the rest of us are getting ready to go skiing. Once Bryan gets back we will head to the slopes!
I love vacations!!!!