Oh There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays!

We had a great holiday season this year, even though I was sick the whole time and then gave it to Abe right as we were coming home from UT. We have so many pictures to post that I will just do one really long post, if you read the whole thing you must really love us.

The night before Christmas Eve Abe and I went to the Messiah Sing-a-long at the Kennedy Center in DC. It has been a tradition for us to go every year and this was by far the best we have ever been to!

We met some friends of our their and their mother was kind enough to wait in line for 2 hours by herself for all of us to get tickets. After Abe and I got there we still had to wait another 2 hours to get tickets. Then after their mother waited for all of us all day she didn't even come to the concert, she took our friends kids home and babysat them. That is a good woman. Since we had been there all day to get tickets we thought we would eat dinner there. Luckily I had brought a baggy of peanuts and a baggy of crackers to snack on while we were in line because the food at the Kennedy Center is outrageously expensive. So this is a picture of our lunch and dinner.

My friend Alana

Abe took this picture of the concert hall. You might notice the older woman at the bottom shaking her finger at Abe because apparently they don't allow you to take pictures in the concert hall. She was not happy with us...
The next day was Christmas Eve and Abe and I spent the whole day traveling to UT.

Champ loves Christmas!! He totally understands how it works too. He won't touch any of the presents until Christmas morning. Once he see's the stockings being put out the night before he knows the next day he will be getting his presents. Christmas morning Abe and I woke up pretty early because we were on East coast time so we decided to play pool. Anyone who has met Champ knows that he goes nuts when anyone plays pool so we expected him to wake up and come down to check it out. Well he did wake up and he did run down but he also knew it was Christmas, so he ran down looking very excited said hi to us and then instead of going crazy because we were playing pool, he went running right back up stairs. Apparently there is one thing that will tear Champ away from people playing pool and that is Christmas morning!

Abe and I got plane tickets to come home for Christmas from my parents so we weren't expecting anything, but everyone still got a stocking full of goodies and gift cards.

I don't know why but Abe likes to keep his empty bottles of Tobasco sauce and he cleans them out and fills them with water. When we first got married he gave my mom one of these such bottles and she thought it was funny and placed it on display. So this year for Christmas Abe gave her another one. Doesn't she look so pleased with her gift.

After that we gave them their real gift...

I think they liked this one a little better.

The day after Christmas Brooke and Cody came over with their kids. We had dinner and then played in the basement.

Ava is getting so big! Last time we saw her she had just barely been born.

Abe thought he would take this moment to snuggle up to my best friend. Brooke thought it was pretty funny.

The boys had a ping pong ternament. What a bunch of good looking guys.

Noah ignored us all and played with nanna's train set the whole time. He wouldn't even turn away for a picture. What cute kids.

Abe's family waited to have their Christmas party after Christmas so we could be there. We all went out to eat and then to a bouncey play land place, it was so fun. I beet all but one of the Ford men in air hockey and the game I lost was only by one point. It was great to have bragging rights all night.

We also had races through this opstical course. We had all of the spouses race and I was triumphant over Abe (haha). Then I raced Abe's sister Annie and she killed me. There is a wall you have to climb over which requires a lot of upper body strength, and apparently the only reason I got over so fast when I raced Abe was because I pushed off of him to get up. When I raced Annie I tried everything and could not for the life of me get over that wall. Good job Annie, you were the Ford Opstical challenge winner.

All the Ford grandchildren singing Christmas songs. How cute are they!

The Price family had a party on my parents 43rd wedding anniversary! We also celebrated all of the December and Janruary birthday's which includes: Abe, Steve, TJ, Jake and Joey. This is a picture of my Brother Rick and I.

Natalie and Laurissa impatiently waiting for the brithday cake to be cut.

There were so many candles between all of the birthday boys that we stuck the candles in bread so we wouldn't mess up the cake. We had quite a flame going.

After they were all blown out we decided it was definitely a good idea to not put them into the cake becuase the fire was so hot it melted them right down to the bread!

Here is my sister Stehanie and my oldest nephew TJ. You might think that TJ is a lot older than he is because he is so tall, but he is olny 12 year old!!! He has always been tall for his age, but he in the last few months has shot up like 4 inches! The little baby that I baby sat all summer when he was born is now 6 feet tal and still growning, I can't believe it!

After this picture my camara's batteries died so I could take any more pics. We also Had breakfast with our good friends John and Kritine Covey, Abewent four wheeling almost everyday with his brother's and pulled the little kids on sleds behind them, we did several puzzles because it is a family tradition, we had breakfast with Alyse and Bryan, and we got together with our friends in Springville for New Years and had a blast(Ammon and Liz, Nate and Cass, and Heidi and Aaron)

The trip was a great success, we had so much fun! We loved seeing everyone and spending time with family. Even though we love DC and are having so much fun living here there is no place like home for the Holidays!