A late Merry Christmas!

It has been a busy but wonderful week for us. Matt had to work Monday and Tuesday. We don't see the point in lugging our Christmas gifts for each other to the other coast, so we decided to open gifts Monday evening. Yes, that meant that Matt had to spend Monday's lunch break buying gifts for me and wrapping them as soon as he got home, but, to quote him, he "has a reputation to uphold"! Matt was able to get off work a little early Tuesday and we packed up the car and headed to Tampa to stay with his dad and family. It was so nice to see them and spend time with just the five of us. Jean made a great Christmas Eve lunch and her Christmas chocolate peppermint pie. Yum! We are going to have to take a lot of pictures to fill up the 8G memory card they gave us with our new camera and put pictures on our new digital picture frame. Thank you for our wonderful gifts!

Tuesday evening we headed to my parents to have Noche Buena with my parents, the Eikelands, the Woodsons, Grandma and Barbara Wurdeman. Even though dad had a rough time getting dinner from the restaurant the food was good. Barbara Wurdeman made her sugar cookies which were a hit at Thanksgiving and we were all looking forward to the Christmas encore.

We stayed Christmas Eve at Matt's mom's house. We didn't stay up too late and luckily we got up earlier than planned so we could get ready to go to Mimi and Gramps' house after we did gifts with Barbara. She did a great job picking out dress and casual shirts for Matt and I got some nice lotions from Bath and Body Works. We both love the Christmas pillow and blanket as well as the Halloween candy dishes. At Mimi and Gramps's we opened presents with the cousins and aunts and uncles and had a delicious meal. I think Brian has the mashed potatoes' recipe down! After lunch we played Humdinger. You get a card with a song on it that you have to hum and hopefully the other people will guess the song. Time flew and we were off for my parents.

When we got to my parents house, Grandma had just started opening her gifts. I'm glad she hadn't opened the one from us yet! Matt and I must have been good this year because there were even gifts there for us! We were both excited about our big gifts, Matt's new Xbox game and my new Shark dust buster. Matt commented that mom did a good job buying gifts that he liked. (I did wash a new wash cloth so I can use it later today!) It wasn't long before we headed to the Woodson's for Christmas dinner. Barbara and Jack sure put together a great meal! I think Matt and I both tried April's homemade bread, which was good. No one was really up for dessert, though I think almost everyone had a little something! We stayed with my parents that night. Matt went to bed early since he was getting up to go to breakfast with his after Christmas shopping family. We stayed up talking until the girls got the giggles, a surefire sign that we need to go to bed.

Friday morning mom made French toast on her new griddle and we visited until Matt got back from breakfast and then we loaded up the car for our trip back home. It's always so nice to see everyone!