Christmas...Finally

I have been terrible with blogging lately. Let's do a little catch up:

This year for Christmas we had actually planned on staying at our house but we had an opportunity come up that we couldn't refuse. Some friends of ours are also from Boise and weren't going to make it home either. Since we recently got a new van, Mitch and I had the idea of travelling with Shayne and Jessica to Boise. All the seats in the van would be taken but this way, we could drive out for half the cost and have twice the drivers. So, the Thursday evening before Christmas we piled (and I mean piled) into our van and started our 26 hour drive to Boise. Usually its 23 hours but with 3 kiddos it took us a little longer. The boys travelled absolutely awesome!

After dropping off Shayne and Jessica we headed to the Ririe's home. Here's the fun part...we only told Mitch's dad we were coming. No one else in the family knew we would be there. So, we put Eric on the front porch by himself and I made the phone call. It went something like this:
Me: "Hey, Mom. Did our present get there? I've been tracking it and it says it was delivered."
Mom: "I haven't gotten it yet. Who did you send it? UPS?"
Me: "Uh, yeah. Would they have left it on the porch?"
Mom: "UPS sometimes does late drop offs. Let me go check."
She played into our plan too perfectly. When she opened the door the first words out of her mouth were, "What did you do?" Not sure how that ties in but it was hilarious. We recorded the whole thing. It was so worth it!

We had an absolute blast in Idaho! Sadly there wasn't any snow so I didn't get to go snowboarding. The boys loved being with Grandma and grandpa and their uncles. Eric loved Christmas this year. He totally got the whole Santa thing. He woke all his uncles up so he could see what Santa brought him (Nerf Guns this year). After church we all opened our gifts and were all spoiled rotten as usual. Aren't we so blessed every year?
Eric flying to save the world in his new Superman jammies:

Eric also playing with his new car mat and Cars from Grandma and Grandpa:

The rest of our vacation was spent spending lots of time together. The weather was nice so we went hiking. We played ultimate frisbee up at the church. Several nights were game nights. I even did some shopping with Mom. When the following Friday came, we were not ready to head home but we have to have a job. The trip just made us realize we live a little too far from Boise. Hopefully some day we can get closer.

Side note: this year my goal is to be better at taking pictures of big events like this. I get so into everything I forget pics to go along with it.