Christmas Day

Christmas morning!!! Seriously, can any other day really compete with Christmas morning when you're a kid!??? These kids almost look intoxicated, they're so happy! This year, however, the kids woke up in Grandma & Grandpa's house and they were relieved to know that Santa did in fact get the memo. They all made out like bandits, like always. A highlight for Austin this year is his new snowboard. He was pretty excited to get it and strap himself inside. He has already had his first "daddy taught lesson" up at Mt. Hood and did awesome. I think he'll be picking it up really quickly. Grandpa was kind to fix us a big, wonderful breakfast before we trekked back home for the remainder of the day.

Every Christmas we try to uphold the family tradition of shooting clay birds with our shot guns. This year was no exception. The Ridgeway's invited us out to their property for this event and we had such a great time. Both Kyle and Justine were able to take leave from the military and spend Christmas at home. It was great to see them! Later that evening we headed over to Jeff & Marie's for dinner. Marie has taken on the tradition of hosting Christmas dinner at their house, which makes us all happy because she is such a great cook!

Not all gifts were opened in the morning. Spencer and I had a present waiting for the kids at home. We got them a 26 gallon fish aquarium for their room. It's really a neat tank and we got lots of fun accessories, including a large, bubble-blowing dragon. Unfortunately, we lost about 7 fish in the beginning while the tank was trying to get established, but now we are going strong. Fish tanks are so soothing and eye catching, we all love it. The boys fall asleep to watching the fish eat every night.