Christmas morning, we got up at our normal Sunday time and opened stockings and presents with Makaela! It was so much more fun with her this year as she was older and understood how opening presents worked. Granted, it was around 7 in the morning as we had church later in the morning, so she wasn't completely "with it". :) But we had fun anyway! Church was so much fun Christmas morning!! It was our church's very first Christmas Day service as any of the previous year when Christmas had fallen on Sunday something always prevented church from meeting (IE. no power, too much snow to safely get to church etc). We had a great turn out and enjoyed seeing so many "family" and friends on Christmas!! After church, we headed home, got our car loaded up, and headed to the Fergusons for lunch. I need to take a moment here and talk about the Fergusons. Papa Al and Grandma Sue both work at the church on staff with Nathan. Their son, Tom, and his wife, Gwyn, are good friends of ours with 2 little girls who Makaela LOVES to play with!! Tom is involved in music ministry. Papa Al and Grandma Sue's daughter, Kim, and her husband, Jeff are also good friends of ours! Kim co-leads the bible study I have been a part of and are our neighbors just up the street!! This entire family has become our "surrogate" family up here. We find ourselves fitting right in with them and spending holidays with them. Their family gets together almost every Friday night just to hang out, and we have joined them often--to the point that when they have other people over, we are part of the "family" who is served after the guests :) We love and are so thankful for this whole family and the way they have extended their love and friendship to us and taken us in under their wings while we are away from our family. I know that our families greatly appreciate them as well knowing that their kiddos are in good hands, especially during times of the year when families are together :) Anyway, we love the Fergusons!!
So, we headed to their house for lunch and to hang out before our flight left. They were gracious enough to take us to the airport Christmas day!! We chatted with some of our family and as the asked what we were doing, we were able to tell them that we were hanging out with the Fergusons!! They didn't need to know that we were only there for a short while :) So, we got to the airport, got on our flight, and landed in Sacramento around 8:30. From there, we hooked up with a rental car my dad had provided for us and drove down to my parents (about 3 1/2 hours). One stop for dinner at one of the few places open on Christmas day--Carls Junior :) Yummy Western Bacon Cheeseburger :)
We arrived at my parents just around midnight right after my brother and sister had gotten ready for bed. My sister "knew" (because she's sneaky like that) that we were coming but my brother had no idea!! So, we woke him from having just fallen asleep to surprise him and move his bed to a different room. haha!!
The next day, we hung out and then made ourselves scarce when my brother and sister in law showed up at my parents. Seems like it took them FOR-EVER to come back to the bedroom, only to find us in "their" room :) So all things considered, the surprise came off well!!
We did the same with Nathan's family. His sister's family and his Mom knew we were coming as a friend at church had mentioned that we were staying with them--not knowing it was a surprise. This actually worked in our favor as we had Nathan's sister, Alicia, orchestrate a dinner gathering at Red Robin. She wouldn't tell anyone why she needed them to be there, just that it was really important. So once everyone was gathered, we showed up and they were all SHOCKED!!! We had so much fun surprising our family and hanging out!! Here are some pictures from our time down there :) I'm always horrible about taking the camera out when we are with Nathan's family--I seriously need to get better about doing that!! Merry Christmas! :)
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