Christmas in Iowa

We spent the week of Christmas, including Christmas day, in Iowa and had a great time like always.

You were a great traveler - insisting that you walk and pull your suitcase.  You did great with it!  It's never easy getting from Michigan to Iowa (flight plus long car ride), but you did awesome.  Lots of games and movies on the iPad!

It snowed early on in our visit, so we made sure to get outside and play.  You, Addison, and Colton thought it would be fun to ride your bikes from the machine shed to the house...not so easy to do in heavy, wet snow.  Daddy got a workout pushing you all.

We went on several "tractor" rides on Papa's Ranger.  You loved to go fast (even though it was freezing cold outside).  We did lots of exploring around the farm finding Great Great Grandpa's old truck, checking out the inside of the giant Cotton Wood tree on Uncle Will's land, and sitting in Papa's combine tire.

Christmas Eve we all headed to Uncle Travis and Aunt Juli's church.  You did really well to sit through the service and were such a big girl to go with Addison to the front of the church for the children's time.  After church, we headed to Uncle Travis and Aunt Juli's for a delicious dinner.  We even had a mini-birthday party for you.

Christmas day we finally saw the sun.  We had a great time with family with lots of food and laughter.  We even did our traditional family walk to the corner in the afternoon.  We have done this as long as I can remember and it has always been so much fun.  Everyone has to write down how long they think it will take them to walk from the house to the highway and back (roughly 1/2 mile round trip).  All watches and phones are left inside the house.  Everyone starts at the same time (a stopwatch is left on the driveway) and we all hit the road walking, running, tossing a football, etc.  I'm sure we look crazy to the people driving by, but it's always great to get out of the house, get some fresh air, and work off some of the food we've stuffed ourselves with.  As soon as your foot touches the driveway again, your time is recorded.  The 3 people who come closest to the time they wrote down gets a cash prize ($1 per person...I think this year it was $6 for 1st place, $4 for 2nd, and $2 for 3rd...in the past we've also had lottery tickets as the prizes).
 

It was a great Christmas and we were so glad to be able to spend it with family.