Christmas in Clarkston!

This year we traveled to Trisha and Danny's house for the Christmas break.  Brent had a week off, and Jacob wanted to work, so we went there for Christmas.  Danny and Trisha were excited to spend their first Christmas in their new home and it was a start to a new Christmas tradition for us...with no one coming home for Christmas anymore...we can travel around and spend it with the kids and grandkids in their own homes.  Our vacation started the first night we got there, Monday, with a visit to the "Train Park".  Lewiston has a park with an old train in it, and they light up all the trees and play music and the kids love to go play on the jumping pads that turn different lights on...and ring the bell on the train...and dance to the music with all the dancing penquin lights...and walk through the tunnels of arches that change color as you walk through.  We have gone before, at Thanksgiving time, and have had a lot of fun, so it was good to go back, and the lights were even prettier than ever!

 

For Christmas Eve, we had a very informal fondue night.  Jacob made us real Swiss Cheese fondue, with amazing bread to dip in it... and Trisha had lots of fruit and Chocolate...and for my birthday, they had given me a marble stone grill for cooking meat, so we had steak and chicken to cook on the marble slab.  It was fun to stand around the island in the kitchen and just dip and eat and visit!  Then the elf brought jammies for the kiddies, and it was time to hang stockings and read the Christmas stories.  Ali read us all, "The Shiniest Star"...it was so cute!

 Jakey in his new Christmas Eve PJ's...

  

It was fun to be there Christmas morning when the kids came to see what Santa had brought them!  Grant was so excited, he was shaking!  We had a wonderful morning opening presents...we were all spoiled rotten!  Brent and I were especially blessed with so many nice things.  It was a great Christmas, and so fun to get to spend the entire day with family.  So many times at home, we would all open presents and then everyone would leave for the in-laws...leaving us to spend a long, quiet day alone, so this year was very rewarding to play all day together and have so much family time!

 And no...Danny has not gotten chubby in the cheeks...he was just having his mini muffins for breakfast and I caught him in the act!  Sorry Danny... We want to give a special thanks to everyone for the nice Christmas we recieved.  We got a new soundbar for our flatscreen, a GPS for the car, a new large set of beautiful silverware, an awesome new canopy for our boating times, a new SodaStream machine for making all the pop we could ever need (even Brent).  We also got a gift card for dinner, a new blu-ray movie, some coveralls for Brent, some perfume, a Cricut cartridge, and decor for Kristi...and we still have some presents yet to open!!  We were truly blessed and very appreciative to all of you for your thoughtfulness!

   Trisha's family got a Wii for Christmas, and it was fun to play games and dance.  Jacob and Ali had a great time dancing to "Just Dance 2"  We even got some video, which I'm sure we will be saving for the perfect time to (blackmail)...umm, I mean view!   We also had a great meal with Prime Rib for Christmas dinner.  All in all, it was one of the funnest Christmases we have had in a long time.  Many thanks to our hosts for entertaining us, and also spending time watching movies and playing games with us.  We had a Great time!  Hope all of you had just as nice of a Christmas!

(Well this may not be the perfect time...but I guess it's as good as any!  lol :-)