It comes to an end.

Well, our vacation and gift giving and gift opening and eating mounds of food has come to an end. It is always sad when the season ends and the visits are over. It is tough to come home knowing that now we have to put all the decorations away and head back to work/school. But we had a fabulous week off, and I am glad we had a chance to go home this year and visit our families. It was nice to be with everyone.

Let's go back:

Wednesday. New Years Eve. We are with Mat's family and now everyone is together. are you ready? Mat's brother Zac, Mat's sister Carrie and her husband Jonathan and their two kids "M" and "G" (and she is pregnant with baby Hicks), mat's sister Teen and her husband Frank, Mat's sister Jess and her husband Tom (and their dog, Target), Mat's Aunt Betty, Mat's parents (and their two dogs lucky and Lady), Mat's Grandma Pletcher. And then, of course, the 5 of us. Yep. That is a lot of people in one house. But it is a boat load of fun. We had dinner at Mat's grandma's house on this day. Long ago we stopped fitting around one table, but somehow she makes it work! We had yummy food, and sang the 12 days of Christmas (yeah, you don't want to know. Annual tradition), and then headed back to Mat's parent's house for the night. We all stayed up (except the kiddies who went to bed early) until midnight and rang in the New Year together.

Thursday: New Years Day. This is also Mat's dad's birthday! He was a new year's baby. I will save him some stress and not tell you how old young he is. It had snowed quite a bit on Wednesday and so the kids got a chance to go out and play in the snow today. They loved it. We also opened all of our presents this day as well. All those names above?? Yeah. You get the picture. It was MADNESS. But good times. The kids got some serious loot, and the adults didn't do too shabby either! Many years ago, because we are so numerous now, we decided to do a secret santa among the siblings/significant others. That has worked out really well, and it is always fun to find out who our "secret santa" is. After the gifts were open and we were buried in paper and toys, we had a yummy lunch and sang happy birthday to Mat's dad. And gave him presents. Which added to our enormous paper pile.
We also played some board games,played a lot of Wii (even had a bowling tournament) and had some good times. We have gone to bed exhausted every night.

This is the day we also had the "passing of the trophy" for our fantasy football league. Each year Mat's family and we are all part of a fantasy football league. We didn't have a chance to do an "official" passing of the trophy in 2007, so Jonathan the 2006 winner passed the trophy to Frank, the 2007 winner, and then Frank passed it to Teen the 2008 winner. The first woman winner! We were so excited! I put a few photos below. It is fun to play together.

Friday. Last full day of vacation. This day we were going to go to a movie, but there wasn't much out to see, so we decided to stick around the house and visit instead. We also used this day to laundry (yuck), pack the car (that was an adventure in itself) and get things together. Saturday morning we would be heading out early, so we wanted to have the car ready to go. We played more Wii, more board games, and just relaxed. MAt's sister Jess and hubby Tom went home on this day (put a small dent in our house party) so we said goodbye to them.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and ready to head out by 8am. I went out to warm up the car and it wouldn't start. That was......NOT awesome. I turned the car over a couple of times - no response. Battery must be dead. Mat had discovered a light on in the back of the car a day earlier, and the temperature was 12 degrees, so neither of those things helped. But with a jump start, the van started, and we didn't have any further problems. That is not the first time that has happened to me. Fun times. We didn't get started until 9am, but even with the late start, and two stops and 20 minutes of traffic, we were still home by 5:20. So not bad!! We used our new GPS, and that was fun. The kids did really great on the way home and the ride went quickly and smoothly. We were glad to get home, and we spent the night unloading the car and start putting things away.

Sunday: our final day of vacation! Today we spent the whole day relaxing, putting things away, and getting ready for the start back to work/school. It is hard to believe how fast 13 days of vacation goes by!! We had such a wonderful time, and we and the kids were very spoiled. We wish we didn't have to go so long in between visits like this where everyone can be together. My favorite part of the holidays is the gathering of all of us in one place.

So that was our vacation! It was really great. The kids got spoiled rotten as always, and we had so much good food that I am going to go through withdrawal over the next couple of weeks. I want to thank all of our family and friends that gave our family such wonderful presents and wonderful fun. If you saw the pile of loot, you would be amazed.

Happy 2009 everyone! We had a really great 2008. We are lucky to have our health, our family, our jobs. I can't complain about little things when all the things that really matter were awesome. Look for soon a little picture video of a look back at our 2008. Also I will post a short video of our Christmas morning over the next week or so.

Enjoy the pictures, and I will be back on Tuesday! Sorry this post was a little late!! And the pictures are NUMEROUS!!