Better late than never!

Our annual Christmas Tour of Texas has finally come to a close and it is back to reality tomorrow (insert sobs here) and the busiest month at work...which means I have lots of late nights, working on the weekends, and staring at spreadsheets on the computer for hours on end to look forward to. Yipee. Oh and Ben gets to start school again next week! I know he is just THRILLED to get to do that.

Can you tell we wish that we could rewind and re-do the last two weeks?

We had so much fun with our families over Christmas. It was so good to get to see almost everyone in our immediate families (we missed you Aaron and Allison!) PLUS a lot of our extended families. We wish so badly that we lived closer to both of our families (shoot, I'd take just living closer to one of them!) because we seriously logged in over 1000 miles in the last two weeks. Crazy!

Our journey first took us to beautiful Lubbock, Texas. The drive was just fantastic- full of exciting things to look at. Like this:

What? Not so exciting?? The drive was so captivating that I kept falling asleep. I am usually pretty good about being awake on road trips (I think it's unfair to sleep when it's just the two of us), but I literally could not keep my eyes open, no matter how hard I tried. Luckily, Benny didn't mind :)

We did a lot of this:

cousins standing in the kitchen talking

more cousins- starting at the top- Slade, Candace, Lorri, Micah, Canyon

So here's what Christmas day in Lubbock was like:

12 pm (which really turns into 1pm)- LUNCH!

A little after lunch entertainment, courtesy of Canyon

We literally had to BEG Ben to pick up the guitar and play for us

Pretty Candace (and me)

After our food has settled and we've gone for seconds (and thirds, and fourths...) we get ready to play BINGO! This year we each brought 3 gifts- a gag gift, a $5 good gift and a $15 good gift- here they are all lined up. Yep, that's a lot of BINGO games...

Just your typical scene at the table...little Olive dog getting a drink of Coke from her dad...

Nice hat, BB

We came away from the BINGO game, with a lovely sparkly headband thing, CHOTOX (chocolate botox), a Chick-fil-a gift card, a new CD and a target gift card. Not too bad!

The rest of our time in Lubbock was spent sleeping, watching movies, playing games and hitting some after-Christmas sales at Target.

Anyone out there ever played Qwelf?? If not, you really should- it's the funniest game! Poor Beverly had to sit under the table for an entire round. She cracks me up!

After a few days in Lubbock, we headed back to SA to pick up the dogs (they stayed with their Grammer and Papa for Christmas) and do Christmas with my family.

Mom and Dad's tree- with LOTS of presents under it :)

Me and Ben with our loot- pre-opening

I got: a SEWING MACHINE (taking my 2008 New Year's resolution of learning to sew to the next level in 2009!), SATC dvd, a skirt, a sweater, a shirt, PB gift card, a beautiful white tree skirt, and some sewing acessories. Ben got: Lowe's gift card, some clamps, a deer stand seat, and some camo. Not a bad year!

Hallie opening presents- homegirl would rip the paper and say "OOOOH A BOX!" and then be ready to move onto the next one. I love watching kids open presents!

Emmie and Grammer opening Em's special heart necklace, which was broken about 5 seconds after putting it on. Ha!

Jackson got a full Cowboys uniform from Courtney for Christmas- talk about an excited boy!

Hope your Christmas was as fun and blessed as ours!