I had a really wonderful time seeing everybody while we were up north.  It wasn’t all just about the kids.  It had been a long time since I’d seen everybody and I really enjoyed getting to spend time with everybody.

We very much appreciated Tim coming to the airport to collect us.  And lending us a truck with 4-wheel drive so we could get around independently and not worry about getting stuck in the snow.  And Erica and Tim for letting us stay on the floor of their house so many nights.

I finally got to see the properties my parents are working on in Wisconsin.  I’d seen one of them, but not since they’d taken down walls and put up new walls and redone the kitchen and so many other things.  It’s looking great!  I’d never seen the house they have out in the next town over, and that one is super cute.  There’s still a lot to be done there, but it’s come a long way since the pictures I saw of it, and it’s going to be amazing once they finish it.

Justin and I also went out and looked at the property where they’re hoping to build eventually.  Dad took us out there in the dark and drove us around, and then we came back the next morning to see it in the daylight.  It’s got some amazing views!  When you’re coming from the low country, where everything is flat, standing on the top of a hill and looking out across other hills and pastures and fields to the Blue Hills is really a beautiful sight.  It’s a great piece of property.

Of course, the snow kept us from staying in Wisconsin as long as I was hoping to stay.  We went back to Minnesota with Mom and Dad to avoid getting snowed in so far from everybody else.  It was a little strange how we ended up working the holiday around the snow – I’m not used to opening everything on Christmas Eve.  But it was so much fun sitting around and watching the kids open presents, and then opening presents for all the adults with the kids helping.  I’m so glad that Luke and Krista were able to make it, with all their airport troubles.  It wouldn’t have been at all the same without them there.

I wish we could have spent more time together as a whole family, but there just wasn’t space enough for that.  So Justin and I spent time with Nathan and Amy and their kids while Mom, Dad, Luke, and Krista spent time with Erica, Tim, and their daughter.  We all had a fun time at our respective homes, sitting out the storm and playing in the snow.  And we had a good time when we all got together on Saturday for the Christmas dinner we didn’t have on Christmas.

Again, we left earlier than originally anticipated.  Justin’s allergies were getting really worked up for some reason, traveling and staying in so many different places and the cold and who really knows why.  We checked into a hotel for the night to let his sinuses clear up a little bit.  It was a nice hotel; our room was so cute!  There was only one bed, and after so much traveling with groups of people, I’m still not used to the idea that a room could have only one bed instead of two.  I think this was the second room that I’ve ever stayed in that had only one bed.  And the water pressure in the shower was so strong!  And we both enjoyed taking long showers without worrying about using up all the hot water before everybody else got a shower.

The next day, we took Tim, Erica, their munchkin, Luke, and Krista to lunch at Five Guys.  We’re enamored with this restaurant right now.  Best.  Burgers.  Ever.  So yummy.  After lunch, we had to say good bye to Luke and Krista as they went back to the airport, and Justin, Erica, and I wandered around the Container Store for a while before she went home to put the munchkin to bed and Justin and I went to the Mall of America to meet up with my friend Sara.

That was so much fun!  We wandered around the whole mall.  Justin figured it took us an average of an hour per floor for the 3 lower floors.  There really isn’t anything much on the fourth floor unless you’re going to the theatre, restaurants, or exhibits.  And since the exhibit was closed by the time we got there, we left.  But we wandered for hours along the other three floors, picking up a few things here and there (Order of the Stick board game for him, stuffed cow for me).  We went through the mirror maze and I would have gotten completely lost and panicked if they’d left me behind.  We drooled over a Bose home theatre system.  We were in that mall for a long time.

And then we went to her house, which I’d never seen, and it’s so cute!  She and her dad have done some work on it tearing up the carpet and restoring the hardwood floors.  Its’ a delightful home and it reflects her perfectly.

And then we went out for Indian food and it was delicious!

I’ve fallen into the chronological thing that I was trying to avoid by writing about the trip in separate posts.  It just gets so long when I write this way!

So that was Sunday, we left early Wednesday morning.  In between Sunday and Wednesday, we spent time at Erica’s house, went back to the Container Store so I could wander for a long time, went to see Avatar at the IMAX, went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch, and spent time with Erica, Tim, and their daughter.  Tim took us to the airport crazy early in the morning and we flew home without any problems at all, back to the warmer, more humid weather of South Carolina.

It was a great trip and I’m so glad that we were able to make it.  I’m already starting to think about how we can do it even better the next time we all get together.  Other than at Luke and Krista’s wedding, I mean.  That’s their party!  But next Thanksgiving or Christmas or whenever we’re together, how we can do this with less stress for people and better communication about plans and all those things.  We’re a family of planners!  This is what we do. 

I’ve hit the end of the second page on this document, so I’ve really got to stop.  And I think this will probably be the end of the posts about Christmas.  I’ve written a lot and it’s about as much as my attention span can handle.  I want to write about other things!  But I had such a wonderful time and it was so good to see all of you and I can’t wait until the wedding so I can see all of you again!

Love to you all!

One of the many things that excited me about going up north to visit my family was that I was going to get to see my nieces and nephews.  The last time I’d seen any of them, the eldest was scooting around in a plastic truck and his sister was pushing pillows out of her face on the sofa.  She was about 18 months old.  That was two years ago.  They have a little brother now, who I’d never met, and my sister had a daughter who I had also never met.  I was beyond excited to be able to get to meet these new kids and play around with the older ones.

I definitely got the opportunity to do those things.  Justin and I spent several days at both of my MN sibling’s homes and we had an absolute BLAST playing with all the kids.  There was the initial “who are you and why are you so excited to see me?” thing for all of them, but they warmed up after a while.

My sister’s daughter (C.) is such a doll!  She’s still young, so she doesn’t talk much, but she’s got some words down and she’s rockin’ the baby sign language.  It’s really hard to say no when she’s signing “please” or “more” and looking so crazy cute!  I came down the stairs once and she was on the other side of the baby gate from her stuffed giraffes.  She pointed at them and signed “please” and I just about melted right there.  Justin and I watched her the last night we were there so her parents could go out on a date and I’m not sure who was more excited – us for the opportunity to play with her or my sister for the opportunity to go out with her husband.  It would have been better if they hadn’t been feeling sick that day, but I’m pretty sure they still had a good time.

C.’s such a funny kid.  She saw Justin playing with his Nintendo DS and wanted to play with it, too.  She sat there pushing buttons and drawing with the stylus for a while.  When Justin took it back and any time after that when he played with it, she was there, signing “more” and “please” and hoping to play with it again.

She got cardboard box blocks for Christmas and Justin was playing with her, drumming beats and clapping them together and chasing her around the house.  He got tired and sat down, and she went and got the same colored blocks and brought them back to him and asked for more.  And she did that again and again.

She loves to read, even though she doesn’t understand the writing yet.  She pulls out books and pages through them.  She sat on my lap and I read a book to her and then we had to read it again and go back again to look at the pictures.  It was great!

My brother’s children (E., A., and I.) are also such great kids!  E. is the oldest and he’s an energetic little boy.  Running!  From one side!  To the other side!  Of the house!  All day long!  Until Justin pulled out his DS and then E. was right there on his arm watching what was going on and asking if he could play with it.

His sister, A., is confident that she’s a princess and introduces herself as such.  It’s precious!  All the time we were there, she had trouble remembering our names.  So she was always asking, getting our name, and then telling us that she loves us.  And, often, following up with a kiss.  Sometimes it was the other way around.  Adorable!  Trouble for an adolescent, but adorable for a 3-year old!

E. and A.’s little brother, I., is really too little to do much.  I think he’s about 7 months, so he’s rolling over and drooling up a storm and smiling and sleeping and doing all those great baby things.  And all those not so great baby things.  “Exploding baby!”  And there’s baby puke all over the place.  But he’s got great chubby cheeks and chubby legs and he’s so great to hold.  His siblings are great with him, too.  I sat on the sofa for a while, propping him up with my legs so he could sit up and gum a toy and watch his siblings playing.

There was a snowstorm while we were up there, so Justin and I went to my brother’s house on Christmas Eve and stayed there a couple days.  On Christmas, we were in the basement sleeping and heard them through the floor as they ran around excited about Santa coming with presents.  Later in the morning, we took them out into the snow to play for a while.  It was great packing snow, but troublesome because when I stepped off the road to get into the yard, I sunk up to my mid-thigh.  I put A. on top of the drift and she sunk in, too, and couldn’t move.  She tried crawling over it, but with very little success.  We ended up pulling out shovels and piling up a snowbank to build a fort.  And then we dug a path to the pine tree heavy with snow and found a path to get underneath that.  And then my brother came by with the snow blower and dug out a path to the play set, so we went down there and found ways to get onto the swings (that were under snow) and the slide (completely covered in snow) and play for a while.  It was a lot of fun.

I think E.’s favorite thing is video games, so he tried to get people to play Lego Batman with him when everybody was there.  I didn’t do very well, but I’m pretty sure he got Dad, my sister, and my little brother all to play with him for a while.  And he got Justin to let him play with his DS a couple of times.  Sit on a man’s arm watching him play for long enough, and he’ll let you have a go, especially when you’re as charismatic as E. is.

A. loves to be tickled, and spun around in circles.  She kept coming up to Justin and asking him to play “the spinning game” again.  And she’d bring me things as gifts to play with or sit beside me.  The last night we were there, she fell asleep after dinner because she’d missed a nap and it had been a very full day with people all over the house and lots of craziness.  She woke up as people were starting to get ready to go, and I got to snuggle up with her on a chair while the truck was loaded up and everything was done.  She was so sweet, just curling up and snuggling into my shoulder with her blanket.  It was wonderful.

Seeing the rest of my family was great, and I’ll get to that eventually, but just getting to play with my nieces and nephews was so wonderful!  I’m so glad that we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the kids.

Justin and I are back in South Carolina from our trip to visit my family in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  I’m at a little bit of a loss to know where to even start writing about it.  For one, I’m not sure that anyone visits here who doesn’t already know how that trip went because I SAW YOU THERE.    And my head and heart are so filled up with the experience that I’m not sure how to say what I really want to say about it.

I think what I might end up doing is taking several days and just talking about one part at a time.  I’ll spread it out and take my time processing through the whole trip.  And that way I can ramble on and on and not spend pages and pages for one single post about it.

Justin and I are still in our post-travel resting stage.  The house is a wreck.  The bags are still packed and sitting next to the laundry.  We haven’t even made the bed today.  We did shower!  But that’s only because we had to go into town.

The traveling part of our traveling actually went very well.  We flew out of Charleston airport, connected through Chicago, and landed in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and took that same route back home.  Our flights were all on time.  Our connections weren’t too difficult – we did have to catch a shuttle at Chicago to another terminal on our way back, but we got in line just in time for the shuttle and got to go right across.  I even had time to hit the ladies room and then pick up a yogurt and be back right on time for loading.

All of our luggage made it through with us, security wasn’t difficult, flights were pretty easy on us.  All in all, the traveling went well.  It’s just tiring.  Which is why this post isn’t going to be very long.  But I’ll be sure to come back again soon and write more about the trip.

It really was a wonderful time.  We both enjoyed it a lot.  It had been a long time since I’d made it up that direction and it felt so good to get to see it all.  But it was especially nice to get to spend a bunch of time with my family.

I love you all!  And I miss you already.