Christmas Wrap up

So, California . . . you know, that place is rather amazing, in some ways! I mean, we drove an hour north of Riverside, and we were in the freezing cold snow of Lake Arrowhead, in the mountains. If we had driven an hour west, instead, we could have spent a brisk Christmas day on the beach instead! Divers activities within an hour . . . I like that!

Anyway, to the point! The Tippie family invited us to join them for a Christmas getaway - and we accepted! Although we had grandious plans of playing in the snow all day every day that we spent up there, it sort of turned into a comedy of errors! (One that, hopefully, we can all laugh about later, when the wounds have all healed! LOL)

Some of our little group came ill prepared to have more than one change of clothes, much less play in the snow, get wet, and come inside to dry clothes! There was one pair of boots that AT LEAST 5 of us wore,(taking turns, of course!) and my (NOW) famous cheetah print slippers were worn by almost all of the family members, at one time or the other, over the course of 4 days! These are the things that quality memories are made of, people!

There was plenty of good food, Duraflame logs for the fireplace, card games and movies on DVD to keep us all happy, and ALMOST free of cabin fever! Although some of the work-a-holics (cough, cough, Dad, cough, Karalee, cough!) couldn't fathom, and at times even enjoy, just lounging around without a tight schedule to stick to! I had to remind them MORE THAN ONCE of the definition of the word "vacation"! HELLO!!

Without further ado, I present the Christmas photo line-up:
Chase and Richard digging a path to the front door! Yes, it DID take 4 hours to completely clear a way to go. Karalee and DeNeece took turns, also.

While the digging was going on in the front yard, the girls were on the back deck, in the 3.5 feet of snow, building a snowman! I was supervising, and, okay, taking photos! The finished product was beautiful . . . especially considering that NONE of these girls had ever made a snowman before! (It was a little disappointing that there were no carrots available for a nose! And, how 'bout olives for eyes . . . Necessity is the mother of invention, right??? LOL)

We DON'T have the tradition of decorating the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve, but we did this year. My dad's family ALWAYS did it that way, so it was a little taste of Bailey tradition out of necessity.

Kaitlyn was the first one to go to sleep, while we watched a movie. BUT, she woke up later and was one of the last to go to bed before Santa showed up!

Various Christmas morning shots . . . Karalee SWEARS that she did shout the traditional "IT'S A SWEAT-AIR!" (Three Amigos reference!) but nobody else heard it! And, she got 3 sweaters . . . Maybe she was too caught up in the excitement!!

Richard and Chase were really wrestling in that photo, although it looks like they were cuddling. Richard pretty much had chase in a headlock! Any photo that can be captured of someone dominating Chase (His football coach has named him "Manimal" because of his 6'3, 210 lb, 15-year old body!) is worth keeping!

A cute cousins shot . . . don't they look thrilled??? (By the way - there are 10 cousins missing from this photo! Maybe next year, y'all!!)

DeNeece, Bart and Karalee all received the same hand-crafted temple picture from me. Karalee's was waiting at home in AZ - why cart around what I didn't have to, right??

And, finally, DeNeece decided that I need to start collecting teddy bears again, and gave me this mini collection to get started!

Grammy made Christmas Jello - so named because she ONLY makes it on Christmas, because it is a LOT of work! And Grammy and Grumpy with their cute matching shirts . . . Christmas dinner style!

One of our various Christmas night activities . . . we usually do graham cracker houses, but this year we decided to step up the construction with those gingerbread house kits that you can buy! They had fun . . . but the gingerbread, honestly, didn't taste that great! Kinda like those teething cookies, for infants, with a taste of ginger and cinnamon.

Snow photos - playing, working and posing!
And, hot chocolate is a MUST HAVE after playing in the snow! Matt and Daylyn were kind enough to pose for me!

Leisure time photos . . . MaiCee, Kaitlyn, Daylyn and Kayla just posing like cute girls do!

The puzzle - we've done about 6 puzzles, this past year, as a family, and this is ONE of the TWO that we didn't have the last piece missing! WOO HOO!!

Chase likes to be goofy - here he is wearing my neck pillow as a hat . . . Silly Chase!