Merry Christmas

This Christmas was so very different from the last.  Last Christmas Kristin was in a New York hospital with mom by her side recovering from gallbladder surgery.  Lynn and Kerry stayed in Idaho with their family, my dad was alone in Montana, and Chris and I were together in Nebraska.  This year was a little more fun having everyone together.  Kristin, Chris and I have been staying at the little house at my parent's and actually woke up before the kids.  Ella and Morgan soon followed, but we waited until Ashley was up for presents. 

Dad waiting for the excitment to begin

Ella and Morgan with their stockings

Posing by Santa's gifts

Ashley putting on her chapstick

Ella with Uncle Chris

Morgan waiting with Auntie for the rest of the presents

Presents!

Christmas Eve

                                                         The McCulloughs              

For Christmas Eve we went into Billings and had dinner at my Great Aunt Ruthie’s with her son and his family.  Since it had been four years since we all got together, we had a good time catching up with everyone. After dinner the McCulloughs went to church and Mom, Dad, Kristin, Chris, and I all went for our traditional drive through Zoo Montana's Festival of Lights parade, then into Laurel to look at the more memorable houses of our childhood.  We really had a great time walking down memory lane.

Christmas in Montana

With all the snow on the ground we had to visit the horses and explore...

Morgan and Ella

Petting the horses

Falling down the hill

Snowball Fighting with Uncle Chris and Papa

Ashley was completely amazed by Rudolph and Santa

After playing outside the girls came in to make some cookies for Santa

Ella, Morgan, Ashley

Ella, Morgan

Bear

We are in Montana this year for Christmas, the first in 4 years.

On Monday we had some family over to my parent's house for dinner.  My cousin Scott came over with some pictures of our bear that lives on my parent's land.  Scott was hunting here a couple of months ago when he heard a hissing noise above him in the trees.  When he looked up he saw a black bear.  Upon closer inspection he saw a cub higher up in the tree.  I thought the pictures where fun, and I have only seen the bear once crossing the river, she was much larger this time.

The cub is on the middle branch to the right.

Amber's Bachelorette Party

Amber's bachelorette party was at our new house.
Kelly and Aubrey showed up early to help with the decorations and get food set out. Once the guest of honor arrived we played some games and ate lots of yummy looking and tasting food. Some of our boys went to Cheerleader's to watch a game and eat. They came back by the house around 9 pm to give us all a ride downtown. From there, they went to a movie. The girls headed for the bars where lots of dancing and drinking was involved. Sometime around midnight half of us lost Amber. Unbeknown to us, they had headed to the Balcony. Around the time we realized what had happened the boys got done with their movie, so they just picked us up and took us back home. I was in bed sometime around 1:30 and then got up a 6 am to head to Montana for Christmas. It was all craziness, but very fun.
I cannot remember the last time I have been downtown Boise, but I had such a good time reliving some of the old times with Amber!

Amber trying to figure out what exactly her gifts are

The bridesmaids

Amber on the bull

The Thesis is Done!!!

After a move of 1055 miles across 3 states, 2 years of hard work, surviving 4 tornadoes in one night, making a wonderful wife work the graveyard shift (7 days on, 7 days off), many revisions and 1 defense....Chris has finished his thesis of 4 chapters totaling 147 pages.

We found out last week that Chris has officially passed his thesis and graduates this month.

Here is a picture one of Chris' advisors sent to show copies of his thesis.

Christmas Pictures

Last Sunday, after church, Chris and I decided to take our Christmas pictures while there was still snow on the ground. Lynn and Kerry also decided to follow us to get theirs done as well. Originally they wanted us to take their pictures in front of their Christmas tree, but opted for the snow....so our cards may end up looking a little bit alike this year! I think we got some good pictures and it even started to snow on us a bit.

Us

Lynn and Kerry

Lynn, Kerry, Ashley, Ella, Morgan
Morgan

Ella

Ella playing in the snow

Ashley

Minnesota

Chris and I headed to Minnesota the beginning of December for a Thanksgiving/Christmas visit. Chris' mom met us at the airport and then took us over to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Minneapolis where we were able to visit with some of my family and have a wonderful dinner that my Aunt Connie made for us.
We also spent some time in Iowa to see the King (Jody's) side of the family. When we got back to Rochester, Jody took Chris, Tim, and I to the mall and let us all pick out a book from Barnes and Noble for our Christmas gift. All three of us loved the idea and our gifts. She knew how much we all love books and knew it had probably been forever since we had an opportunity to just browse in a bookstore. Once we had all picked out our books she then took us to Cold Stone for some yummy ice cream! On our last day in Minnesota the Sullivan side of the family came over to Jody's. It was great to be able to see all sides of the family on that trip. This was the first time in many years that Chris had been home around the holidays and I am very glad it worked out for us to make it.