A New Year's Christmas

We went to Columbus to see Nathan's parents on New Year's Eve. It was a fairly uneventful drive, though we did swerve and brake to miss a pedestrian in a small town on the way, who seemed to have begun his celebrations a little early and had wandered into the road in front of us.


Garrett asked us every 15 minutes what state we were in, unfortunately we entered Ohio after driving for 1 hour and still had 2 1/2 hours to go. He said, "I thought Grandma and Gramps lived in Ohio!" Dylan's biggest concern on the trip was whether there would be "froclate milk" (chocolate milk) where he was going. We did convince the kids to sleep a little in the car so that they could stay awake until midnight to see the ball drop, which helped the trip go smoothly. (Last Christmas, the 3 1/2 hour drive took 7 hours!!)


We arrived around 9 pm and were able to watch the ball drop and the kids had a lot of fun blowing their New Year's horns from Grandma.


The next morning we all woke up and after breakfast the kids went on a present hunt to find the presents that Grandma and Gramps had hidden throughout the house. They love that game! Sami got a Jonas Brother's CD, Garrett got a laptop, Dylan got a wall-e transformer, Sydney got a baby doll, and Macy got a cinderella doll with a carriage.


Garrett got to do a project with Gramps, and Sami made a doll with Grandma and we had a very special time. Dylan went on a walk with Grandma and collected lots of pinecones, and Macy and Sydney had lots of fun playing with Aunt Penny's doll cradle. The kids put on a nativity play for the grandparents and sang the songs from their Christmas programs.


Garrett was the saddest to leave, he misses his Gramps and Grandma lots! He called them 3 times after we left because he was missing them! He didn't want to leave, but he didn't want to stay without us either. He was quite happy to get home to his gerbils though, and plans on writing lots of letters.