Winter Break 2012

The school system up north has breaks split up differently than in the south. Down south we had 2 weeks at Christmas and 1 week of Spring break. Up here they have 1 week at Christmas, 1 week in Feb deemed "winter break", and 1 week in April as Spring break.

For winter break, the kids and I (w/o Matt) fly back to AR for the week. They did great on both flights, even if Matthew did book us on a night flight on the way there and a super early flight on the way back. :) We got into LR about midnight and got to our rental car. The whole rental car thing was new for Me, usually Matt does all that. Thankfully he'd reserved it, confirmed our flight time with them so they'd still be there, and told me what to do. We drove to Tanya's new house and crashed. Of course she had two blow up mattresses with Gender appropriate bedding complete with a toy for each child on top waiting. What an Aunt!

We spent the week relaxing with Tan. She took the kids on a hike up a mountain (while I stayed home and napped/read) the first day. Come to find out they ventured off the trail and actually climbed rocks and all that jazz. The kids loved it.

We went for a tame walk around the base of the mountain another day.

Shared in an interesting Sonic eat in-open air lunch.

Went to the movie- Big Miracle.

The kids and I went to Texarkana for a day to visit with Big Daddy and Mepo.

We were honored to be asked to attend the awards ceremony for Peyton's cheerleading career.

Emma had a sleepover with one of her really good girlfriends.

We went to church and confused several people.

We went to a Japanese Grill place where Tanya ruined my daughter by introducing her to Shrimp. yuck!

Tanya cooked us breakfast and several dinners. Plus we went out all over too. One dinner was deemed Family Game Night and Tan brought out some weird game the kids really enjoyed.

It too was too short but not nearly as rushed as Christmas. We loved getting to spend so much time with Aunt Tanya. We miss her!

Christmas 2011

This Christmas had us waking up in Mass. The kids put their stockings upstairs at Jesse's house since she had a fireplace and the Christmas tree. My kids slept good. Jesse kept trying to make noise so Emma would wake up, but she didn't. :) I woke Garrett up and we all went upstairs and opened stockings and presents. The kids loved their presents! Emma loved getting an American Girl doll and Garrett loved getting his own DSi. (Mommy got a Kindle Fire- Thanks Matthew!. Daddy got an iPad- thanks Matthew! err Marti :) ) After presents were done, we hurried downstairs with our loot. stacked it in a corner. Got on the road to get to church in time, with a stop at Dunkin Donuts of course! Had a great Sunday school and service. Had about 20 minutes of snow flurries. Then we booked it back to Natick for the family lunch. We enjoyed our extended family time. Came back to the house. Went to bed and got up early the next morning to fly to AR.

Our AR week went as follows:

One night/day in Memphis visiting old friends . . .well not OLD, just friends we've had a long time. :) The kids enjoyed the DS bonding and marshmallow gun fights.

Two days in AR at one of our Big Kids Houses. A night at Larry's with 1/2 NLR to see and visit with quickly.

Two days in Texarkana with the Pope side of the family. Loved getting to see everyone and have the kids play together! Santa visited again and the kids got spoiled with more presents. Which we left there for them to ship up to us since we flew down and didn't have the space to bring it back with us.

It was a way to quick trip! Though we're so glad we were able to visit even if just for a little bit with many friends and family we've left back in AR. Love and miss yall!