Saturday, 12/25/2010

Merry Christmas

We began this day with my parents in Spokane.  We opened presents with Katie.  When her presents were opened, she began to help us with ours too. She is a very lucky girl.  Santa brought her a baby doll, and her grandparents got her a Tickle Me Elmo and a tent with connecting tunnel.  She was in 7th heaven with all of the new things and paper to play with.  At 10am, my brother Matt, his wife Jenna, their daughter Braelyn, and my grandparents Norm and Kate joined us for brunch.  My parents made a delicious baked apple french toast casserole and paired it with breakfast sausage.  We are blessed to have Jenna with us for this holiday.  She is in the Air Force and was sent to New Jersey at the beginning of December for training before her deployment to Afghanistan next year.  Thankfully, she was given leave for a week and her grandfather gave her a plane ticket to come home.  We pray for her safe travels and return in August.  

At 1pm, we loaded into the car with my parents and went to the airport, heading to Portland.  Again, no full-body scans at the airport:)  By the time we got to the airport, got our luggage checked, and went through security, it was time to board the plane.  How's that for great timing?!  Spencer, Ben's brother, was waiting for us in the Portland airport.  Their mom, Jennifer, was home working on dinner.  She made a delicious Christmas meal for us.  She made a sausage stuffing and stuffed it into a turkey breast, which cooked in her crock pot.  She had delicious sage dinner rolls, a fruit salad, a green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes to go with the turkey and stuffing.  It took longer for the turkey to get to the right temperature than she expected, but it was quite tasty and moist when we finally got to eat. 

While we waited, we opened more presents.  Katie continued to be in awe and excitement with each present that was opened.  That is, until she opened new crayons and a Disney princess coloring book.  After that, it was hard to encourage her to move onto her other presents.  She received a camera from her Uncle Spencer and a shopping cart from Grandma Jennifer.  With no nap and irregular schedules for the past several days, she was exhausted by the end of the day.