Some highlights from our trip to Iowa for Christmas! (We were there Christmas Eve evening through the morning December 26th – short trip!)
Christmas Eve
- Obviously, being with all my family!
- Crunchwraps for dinner being a huge hit
- The sweatshirt our nephew William gave me
- The holiday photos book my snis made us. She had every family photo we’ve done from the last 40 years printed into a book and gave us all one!
- Pawning my painted rocks off on everyone
- Playing Kahoot trivia with the family (really getting into inside joke territory but I have to share because this made me laugh – on the first round my brother Nick put his name as “Steven” so Steven wrote “the real Steven” and on the second round Steven wrote his name as “Nick but smarter” but the game cut off the r and it was just “Nick but smarte” and gosh, that really made us giggle. For the record, I had had one alcoholic beverage and everything seemed quite funny.)
- My hair looking so cute. Ha!
Christmas Day
- Sleeping in past 6:30
- My snister’s kids showing me all the cool gifts they got
- Eating sugary treats all day long
- Steven surprising me with a necklace (even though this was a “no gift Christmas” between us!)
- Me insisting to my dad that he let me carry the presents up the stairs since his knee was bugging him, him telling me they were heavy, then me telling him “I bench pressed 2 45s this week” and him hearing I “benched 245.” Ha. No. Not quite. I’m maybe at 135?
- Seeing everyone open their gifts – we were especially excited for my dad to open his AC/DC tickets, and for my mom to open the custom puzzle we had made for her
- Eating the vegan lasagna Steven made. I had a whole rant written about running out of meat lasagna and it looking like we were trying to get people to eat our vegan one since that is what was left but I will keep that to myself.
- Playing games and building legos with William
- Edited to add: When William said “Aunt Kim! Aunt Kim! Guess what I figured out? Your cats are like your kids!” Ha ha ha.
- Laughing like crazy with Snis, Mom, Dad, & Steven about I can’t even remember what! All I remember is that we had ribbon candy in our mouth and it made laughing even funnier!
Dec 26
- Building a Mini Blocks set with William
- Visiting the new cafe attached to the bookstore in town
- Playing “the floor is lava” with Ella
- Making it home after driving home with 1/4-1/2 mile visibility due to fog for the entire 4 hour 45 min drive. Ugh! We had reserved the plane for these three days and we may have made it there Tuesday but we knew we would not make it back due to that fog! And we were right.
- Giving the cats their Christmas gifts (from my snis and their sitter)!
Looks like everyone had lots of fun, laughter and presents at your house this Christmas. It was a mad house at my Sister in Law’s this Christmas Eve. And always love it when we get to play games too.
Hope you have plenty planned for the rest of the holidays. Enjoy!
Sounds fun there too! Playing games is the best. There are always so many laughs.
I have nothing planned and am so happy about that! LOL!
I think the games are more for the adults, as the kids go off and do their own thing. It’s always fun at my sister in law’s.
Nice highlights. That peppermint treat looks great.
And cool on your dad getting AC/DC tickets. I will be going to see them in Las Vegas at the end of April.
Oh exciting! Have you seen them before?
I have never seen AC/DC before. I have been a fan since 1977. So way excited to see them… finally. Has your dad seen them before?
Yes, finally! I am excited for you! My dad hasn’t and has regretted it (he had a chance a long time ago). We can’t wait!
If it is not personal, would you please share the origin story of using “snis”? Are you also referred to as snis?
It seems like your family has so much fun together! 🙂
Aww, thanks for asking! It’s just a pet name we have for each other! No idea why we started adding the n to sister. But yeah, we are both snis, so our Christmas gifts which all said from snis to snis were confusing to people handing them out LOL! She is also Snistina (Christina) and I am Snisberly (Kimberly).
We do!
I’m glad you had such a nice Christmas! That book of family pictures that Christina put together for everyone is such a treasure. What a cool gift!
It really is! It’s so awesome to have them all in one spot.
What a fabulous Christmas! You sure packed in a lot of fun in a short time! And you have piqued my curiosity about the Lasagna Debacle.
I feel like we always do! LOL.
Sigh, the lasagna. When my mom asked me to make ours I told her not many would want to eat it because it’s vegan. Her response was how good it is. Yes, it IS good but a lot of my family does not want to eat food if they see me (the vegan) eating it. So not many were touching it and the meat lasagna (there was only 1) ran out right away and people wanted more but only mine was left. So they were disappointed and it made me feel shitty. And made it look like I was trying to get them to eat mine, which I wasn’t. So if that happens again I will put mine some place else so they don’t even think about there being vegan food they don’t want to eat.
The great news is my vegetarian nephew liked our lasagna 🙂
It’s not that I don’t want to eat it simply because it is vegan, I just do not usually like the taste of vegan meat! I did like the cheese on that vegan pizza from Papa Murphys, so I probably would have liked that part!! <3
Idk about everyone else. I'm just particular about meat tastes (real or vegan) espesh if italian flavored at all (blegh).
Oh don’t worry, I didn’t have you included in this list of people who don’t want to eat things because they are vegan. I know you don’t mind at all! 😘
This looks so cozy and happy and FUN! I love the inside joke – tehehe. And I’m glad the cats got to play with their fun Christmas toys when you guys got home!
Also, I LOVE the idea of a custom puzzle. I’m going to try to remember that gift idea for next Christmas. My mom would love that!
It really was! I had such a nice Christmas. And thanks for enjoying my inside joke (still laughing at your cucumber!).
Oh yes! If I think of it next fall I will bring it up to you! What photo would you put on it?