Wrap up of the holidays.

So the holidays have come and gone. I wasn't sure how it was going to be. I feel I was stronger than people may have expected. I'm not one to lay in bed under the blankets and cry "always me". Not to mention, you can't do that very well with children. They need me to function. And laying under the blankets crying doesn't accomplish anything, nor would that make Travis happy.


I have posted about Thanksgiving and Christmas in previous posts. Thanksgiving morning we had breakfast with Travis' brother, Chuck and his children along with Chuck's girlfriend, Susan and her sweet family. We ate and the kids played games. We then had lunch/dinner with the Lagerwey family (our business partner) at their home. That was nice also. We've never gotten together with the Lagerweys like that before. That night, the kids and I hung out at home playing the Wii MarioKart game that I got them for Christmas and let them open early.
Christmas was spent with brunch on Christmas Eve with my sister's family and our parents. Then we went home and the kids and I had dinner, played the Wii and watched our favorite Christmas movie, Elf, with Will Farrell. Since our livingroom is under construction, the kids all slept up in the apartment in our barn. Christmas morning was quiet and perfect as the five us of exchanged gifts and hung out with no interruptions. Later, we hung at my sister's house again before dinner with Chuck, Susan and her inviting family! I feel Thanksgiving and Christmas were as perfect as can be with our recent reality.
*If you look at the Christmas tree pictures, in the full tree picture, if you look closely, you can see that we displayed our most recent family picture as the tree top and hung things of Travis' in the tree such as a pair of his sun glasses (you can see one lens), a work glove, watch and pictures Abby wanted up there. I think it was nice and helped feel like he was there with us!

New Years, Abby, Ron and I hung out in the apartment til Kyleigh and Khylar showed up. We played Wii and then since Ron hadn't seen Elf yet, we watched it and bounced between that and the ball dropping in New York and fireworks in Seattle on TV.