Are you ready for the longest post ever? Actually, it's not that long and I'll go easy on the text.

Our Christmas was fantastic. My grandparents hosted dinner on Sunday. Everyone but Dylan was there. It was awesome. As we all (we meaning my cousins) grow older it becomes more difficult to get everyone in the same room but we managed to get it done this year - sans Dylan.

Tom has much better photos from that evening but these will do. After a delicious feast of prime rib, we opened gifts. The littler kids still get a handful of gifts to open. The older kids get a a big'ol wad of cash and this year my grandmother also bought fingerless gloves for all the boys and toe socks for all the girls. It was pretty silly.

 

Not pictured are the photo calendars I made for each of my grandparents. I used pictures of all their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They make memorable gifts - in my opinion - but if only I could remember the actual year my grandparents got married because this lapse in memory totally botched my thoughtful gift. The cover of the calendar reads: The Straubhars, est. 1953. Except that's not the year they got married - it was 1956!!!!!

I am now 0 for 2 when it comes to giving gifts with the est. date. Last year I made a print for my parents that read: The Mikesells, est. 1979. Except that's the year I was born not the year they were married! Pointless story, but worth telling on the off chance that someone finds my inability to count or remember dates entertaining.

We spent Christmas Eve with my parents and Jack. My grandparents stopped by for a bit as well on their way to a crab cook at my aunt and uncle's house. Stephen and Jack did a splendid job preparing rack of lamb and mussels - there is actually a disproportionate amount of food pictures from that evening. But we all know that if I love anything in this world it's a big'ol chunk of meat.

 

After my grandparents snuck out we opened gifts. Tom came away with the biggest haul - Dana got him a new bike! I also think Tom and Dana were pleased with the homemade yet thoughtful and quality gifts we crafted for them. We had a good bit of fun opening gifts and chatting before everyone left around 8:30 pm.



Even though the boys got to bed by 9 pm they still slept in. I don't think we were up and out of bed before 8 am. It didn't help that Henry had a cold (maybe even the flu). Wyatt was up for nearly 45 minutes before we decided to wake Henry.

Opening gifts didn't take very long since we were adhering the read, want, need, wear trend. You know how I hate anything matchy-matchy but when it comes to gifts, we keep it pretty even. The boys each got a new bike from Santa. This was their need gift. I didn't snap a picture but these bikes are legit. And they'd better last a long time because Santa paid a lot of money for them!

To read they each got three Easy-Reader books from National Geographic. To wear, I sewed them each two pairs of pajama bottoms and made graphic tees with their personal spirit animals, a squirrel and a bald eagle respectively. As always, I was super pleased with my ability to be crafty and I was equally as pleased that the boys are still young enough to think my creations are cool. Also, I already had all the materials I needed for the wear gifts save two bottles of fabric paint costing about a buck fifty total!

Henry and Wyatt had to share their want gift, which I suppose is one of the burdens of being a twin. They have had to endure their fair share of shared gifts over the years and I imagine the sharing will only continue. Anyway, we gave them this crappy plastic Bey Blade dome thing that they've literally played with three times because it doesn't work well. But I was expecting this. It's the reason we only bought one!



Stephen and I don't exchange gifts but I wrapped up a pair of lounge pants he knew I was making for him - he selected the pattern and the print. We were both super pleased with the final product. Me because I made the pattern from scratch and the pants fit! Stephen because the pants are just his kind of hideous plus they're cozy!



Between opening gifts and hosting brunch with the Crumrines, we made a quick Skype call to Dylan who was enjoying Christmas in France with a buddy. Then we started pulling together yet another delicious holiday meal. But don't worry, we took a break to open gifts with Glenn, Stephanie, and Tia-D.

The boys scored some fun gifts, this Foosball table being one of them. Again, I think our homemade gifts went over well, although for a brief moment Diana thought we bought her pancake mix from Trader Joe's. Luckily for her I'd just run out of regular gift boxes.



PS. You can catch a glimpse of one of those awesome new bikes in the picture above. It also substitutes as a coat rack.

In addition to our homemade gifts, I gave Stephanie framed family photos taken by the photographer at Wes and Melissa's wedding in June. They were so amazing that Glenn and Tia-D felt compelled to ooh and aah over them!



And then it was time to eat! Stephen made a scrum diddly umptious crab souffle and Tia-D brought fresh fruit and scones. We also had scrapple - a classic Crumrine traditional Christmas brunch staple. If you don't know what scrapple is, you should really click that link. I will tell you that scrapple is some hella good shit and I look forward to the one morning a year that scrapple is placed on the table!

 

After brunch we high-tailed it out of there and headed up to Condo Town for a five-night stay in our snowy little haven - another post. Although don't hold your breath, I am way behind in my story telling!

Also, I lied. This post was heavy on the text. I guess I just had a lot to say after weeks of silence.

Hope you all had a nice holiday and are enjoying the New Year!

I don't know why I feel the need to explain myself - but I do. Although you probably don't care, I am way behind in my storytelling. Which is actually kinda funny because I had decided to stop blogging all together while I was traveling through France and Italy earlier this year. And speaking of the that European vacation, I still have every intention to finish recounting each day of my trip. It's just gonna take a while, especially because other vacations have come and gone since my return and apparently there are some folks who are also waiting for a post or two about our most recent family trip.

So here goes.

In October, over the long Columbus Day weekend, we drove to Fairfield, California to visit Stephen's grandmother. She lives in a posh retirement community for elite military families, although on this trip we learned that the community must accept civilians in order to maintain its non-profit status - but that's neither here nor there.

Boise to Fairfield is a long drive so we left on Thursday evening and stopped over in Reno.



This might sound silly to some of you, but checking into a hotel with my children made me feel like an adult. I could be wrong but I think this was only the sixth time that Henry and Wyatt had stayed in a hotel. And I think they were about 15 months old the last time they experienced the luxury of hotel sleeping.

So it seemed like a big deal to check into a hotel with children old enough to remember the experience and recognize that we were on a family vacation in a different state - which, by the way, was totally confusing to Henry. He kept asking if people in California (he meant Nevada) spoke English because we weren't in the states anymore. At one point, even Wyatt tried to explain that we hadn't left the country.




We rolled into Reno just in time for dinner and the lovely woman at the Harrah's desk gave us two different food coupons: $10 off a $25 breakfast total at some fancy diner and a two for one adult dinner at the buffet. Although I tried to convince Stephen that we needed to eat dinner at the buffet in order to make the most of our money, he is a major snob when it comes to many many things, buffets being one of those things. So per Stephen's stubborn insistence, we ate mediocre burgers in the fancy diner and paid about three times what we would have paid for the buffet.

Not one to let a sleeping dog lie, I again tried to prove my point about the cheaper meal as we walked past the buffet entrance on our way back to the room. Once in the room, Stephen checked the buffet menu assuming it was crappy and he would be able to quite me. Unfortunately for him, the buffet offered fresh rolled sushi, stone oven pizza, and some other tasty item that escapes me. He was instantly regretful and disappointed, which is the point of this silly story. I won. Again.

Since we hadn't made use of the buffet coupon the night before there was no sense in using the breakfast coupon and we ate breakfast at IHOP the next morning. You might be surprised to learn this, but IHOP does not serve quality food. However, they do have four different varieties of sticky syrup to chose from.



After a quick stop at an outlet mall and a quick argument about the worthlessness of outlet malls and shopping in general, we arrived at Grandma Pat's house around 2 in the afternoon. That evening we dined in the upscale community dinning hall. The dinning hall has a strict dress code and Stephen caused a bit of a ruckus when he showed up in jeans. It was cool, though. Grandma Pat pulls some weight and Stephen likes causing a bit of ruckus now and then.



Stephen also lifted some raspberries from the dinning hall. Waste not want not, you know.



We spent the next day in San Francisco with Stephen's good friend Scrappy and his daughter. It was an exciting day with lots of adventures and deserves its own post - sorry to keep you waiting, Scrappy. You'll have to check back in a day or two.

After returning from San Fran, we lounged around the house for a day and relaxed. Stephen prepared a gourmet dinner, even better than the food serve in the upscale dinning hall. The boys eventually went to bed and we talked with Grandma Pat way into the night. She told stories about the late Grandpa Kenny and gifted to us a few prized possessions.



We left early the next day and drove through four states in one day making it back home to Boise in ten hours. It had been close to four years since I had last seen Grandma Pat or made a trip to Fairfield. Hopefully not as much times between our next visit.