Christmas Highlights

We had so much fun on our three week vacation north to Oregon and Washington.  We headed out December 23, quite early in the morning.  Before getting to Oregon we stopped in Sacramento for a quick tour of the capital and to let the kids burn some energy.

 They thought the huge Christmas tree was pretty neat! 

We made it to Redding that first night and in the morning we stopped at the Sundial Bridge.  We weren't in too big of a hurry that day so we walked the bridge and also walked the surrounding areas.

We made it to John's folk's house Christmas Eve - just in time for a yummy dinner!  Although we were pretty tired from traveling, we attended their Christmas Eve candle service. 

The pictures I have of Christmas morning are a bit sketchy...I'm sure my sister in law has more of them...but these are the ones we took.  Thankfully the kids slept in that morning (I had to wake Abby!) so we were able to catch up on some needed sleep. 

Here's William checking out his gifts from Santa.  As I learned last year, Santa doesn't wrap gifts.  I guess because he simply doesn't have time to. 

Abby checking out one of her fun gifts from Santa.

 The colorful bags are their stockings.  They were loaded with all sorts of fun things.

My niece Amanda was able to get some time off of her schooling to spend the holidays with us!  The kids really enjoyed spending time with her - she helped put their race track together, the hot wheels track together - pretty much just showered attention on them!  Aunt Gina and Uncle Andy flew in from TN.  It was nice to have almost the whole family together!

In the evening we all headed over to Aunt Joanie's house where she made a delicious prime rib dinner!
 

After yet again stuffing ourselves, the kids played Hungry Hippo with Aunt Gina - one of Aunt Gina's Christmas gifts. 

 I had to throw this picture in simply because I thought it was SO cute! 

 Here's Abby getting a Christmas pedicure from Aunt Gina.

Later on in the week a group put together a gingerbread train.  It was literally a group effort to get the thing together!

 We hit the Air Museum up one day. 

It was a busy day so Grandpa and William found a first class seat and took a nap!

Another day John and I took the kids to a Children's Museum.  I thought this milking cow was pretty neat!  It sprayed water everywhere!

I have more pictures of our trip, as these are only highlights of the first week.  The second week we were gone we went to Washington - spent several days in Seattle, went up the Space Needle, toured Microsoft and Safeco Park, drove through the Hoh Rain Forest, spent the night in Astoria and Crescent City.  I'll see about posting some pictures of that later.