texas christmas - days 1-8

Christmas came and went with us visiting lots of family - both sides - in Texas.  Jed and I started the trip off by flying out on December 16th, leaving Scott behind to work for a few more days.  My sister Sarah picked us up from the airport and took her to her new house, which is lovely!  Jed was pretty excited to play with her cats - much more excited than they were to play with him.  We spent the next couple days with my sister - going to a nearby park, going out to eat, doing puzzles, making gingerbread houses, and playing in the backyard.

I asked Jed to pick a few books for the trip.
This is what he came up with.
What else could we possibly need?

On Wednesday we started staying at my mom's house in Round Rock, but still got to see plenty of my sister and brother-in-law, Chris, over the next several days.  On Friday Scott arrived and joined the fun!  We were going to go on a double date with Chris and Sarah that evening, but decided that Saturday would work out better.  So Friday evening we drove around some nearby neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights, which Jed really loved!  One of the houses had their garage door open and hundreds of Christmas village houses on display.  Jed was absolutely fascinated with all the moving pieces!

Saturday morning was cold and rainy, but it cleared up in the afternoon and the weather was quite nice for a visit to the park.  After we got back, we left Jed with my mother and Aunt Melody and went to see The Hobbit with Chris and Sarah at the Alamo Drafthouse, a movie theatre that you also order dinner at.  We loved the movie (though some parts did feel rather drawn out for no good reason), but the ending left something to be desired! We all complained about the unnecessary cliffhanger.

My mom and I sang O Holy Night as a prelude to sacrament meeting on Sunday, and though we got compliments I didn't feel good about my performance.  I was so nervous and kept running out of breath!  But I also sang in the choir and enjoyed that.  We went home right after sacrament meeting so that Jed could go down for a nap.  That night we watched Monsters University and worked on a puzzle.

My brother Timothy is on a mission in Ukraine, but he is allowed to call home at Christmas.  We were actually able to Skype with him, which is a pretty recent thing for missionaries to be able to do.  It was so great to see him and how good he looks!  He seems to be doing very well and I am so proud of him.  I love getting the emails that he sends every week!  We Skyped for about 5 minutes and then lost the connection, and we were worried we wouldn't be able to get it back.  After waiting for about 20 minutes, we were finally able to connect with him again and finish the conversation.  After that, we opened presents, finished packing, and worked on our puzzle (which we didn't finish).  At 4:00 Laura came to pick us up and took us to her house for the beginning of the Albrecht portion of the trip!

Cici loved Scott a lot more than he loved her