Merry Christmas

The car was packed to the roof as we were ready to head to Iowa for Christmas, but we ended up spending Christmas in the mountains after much debate on whether we should head East in the sleeting rain and icy roads. We were torn with what to do, but in the end we made the right decision by not attempting the bad weather driving conditions in Nebraska and Iowa. We were missing Omi for Christmas, but had a great time in the snowy mountains. The kids of course enjoyed their swinging time at Grampy and Sharona's. Dylan enjoyed swinging so much that one time he looked like he was relaxed enough to fall asleep in his swing.The highlight of our trip was the awesome sledding hill Grampy built us in the backyard. We started off slow with the freshly fallen snow and Dylan even enjoyed the ride for his first run. After that Dylan wanted nothing to do with sledding. He just wanted to spectate and swing.

After the first day, things got a lot more fun, a little more serious and quite competitive between family members. Our original goal with sledding was to try and see who could reach the big tree (see 1st video below). Then Grampy got down to business and brought out one of his mini-excavators to build up the walls of the Luge.Here's Dylan taking a quick ride with Grampy before he started pushing the snow around the yard to build us a higher starting ramp and higher side walls to the Luge. Then Grampy, Simon and Sean had fun for hours watering down the Luge with the hose to get the track icy and fast. Leave it to my family to bring out the hose in the middle of the winter.Then the sledding really took off and everyone was having fun trying to sled farther than the person before them.This is my favorite picture. I love Shane's expression on her face and check out how the girls are leaning to gain more speed.Ava had fun trying all the different sleds, both sitting and going down on her tummy to try and reach the fence which became our new distance goal. See video below.Dylan was the spectator of the group while the rest of us enjoyed all the fun sledding! Be sure to watch all the great videos below. There's even one of Marley taking a ride. I was able to step away from all our family fun for a little Christmas cheer with my girlfriends who were all in town for the Holidays. It's always great seeing them and getting to catch up.

What a beautiful, sunny day for a walk with the family and the dogs. Lots of family time.
More family time.

We tried for a family picture but this was the best we could get. Check out the mound of presents over my right shoulder. It just seemed to keep growing as Christmas morning approached, along with Ava's excitement for everyone to open all of their gifts.

Trying to get the three cousins to look at the camera at the same time, was a challenge, plus in order to get Dylan to even sit still long enough to snap the camera lens, we of course had to bribe him with food. :)

Look at these cute kids all playing together on Christmas morning. Christmas morning was tons of fun with lots of great gifts, plenty of excitement, and no melt downs. The kids Geo Trax from Grampy and Sharona was a huge hit for the weekend. Simon and Ava had fun setting them up and playing for hours while Dylan loved coming through and destroying all their hard work. The weather was very cold so we headed to the rec. center one morning for some indoor fun. Ava and Dylan loved the kids area and water slides (Dylan just wanted to keep going down the slide over and over again), while we all enjoyed the warm water and the lazy river.

Good thing we were getting ready to leave right after this picture was taken because this activity, that Dylan thought was so funny, eventually riped the side of Dylan's diaper off. Grampy and Sharona with their three Grandkids - Dylan, Ava and Riley.

Thanks for a great Christmas!!

Enjoy all the sledding videos below!!

Ava almost reaching the big tree which was originally our first goal.

Ava and Grampy after the Luge was built up and iced down with the hose. They pass the big tree and reach the fence.

Here's Marley taking a ride on the sledding hill before the Luge got too fast. Don't worry we didn't force her to take a ride. The first time Marley just jumped right on the sled with Simon. By time this video was taken I think she was getting a little tired of riding.

We never really took videos of the adults going fast, but you get the idea of how much faster the hill got as the week went on as Ava passes the big tree and hits the fence.

Yay!!! With Simon's help, we finally figured out a way to post long videos. Soooo, below is the video of Ava's Christmas Concert that was mentioned in the post below that was taking me forever to upload. I was giving up, but of course Simon figured out a way to help me.