Christmas 2016

Christmas break, probably for most everyone, was a whirlwind.  Sometimes I think it's even more so for us when we have three birthdays within days of the holidays.  This year, though, was a big milestone birthday for a particular Grandpa who affectionately goes by Beep Beep.  Back in the summer Amy and the Colorado gang had cooked up an idea to fly to Indiana for a birthday surprise. Months of planning and numerous little white lies, December 22nd finally arrived.  We met up with Amy and family before heading over to the house for a birthday brunch (WL Kecklers were expected, only the CO crew was to be a surprise.)  Although Ben had some inkling that something might be in the works, he was nonetheless surprised and we had a great day.  After brunch, we headed downtown to the Eitlejorg Museum for Jingle Rails.  Kari and Bryce have been numerous times, but this was a first for Kevin, me, and the CO crew.  It really was a spectacular display.

Audra 9, Kari 9, Keira 11, Bryce 7 at Jingle Rails

The afternoon included a Christmas Celebration at the ISO.  It was absolutely grand performance.  J and I had some fun.  Can you find us?  The best part was Gran learning about the concept of photobombing after we told what we had done.

We ended the day with a dinner at Ted's Montana Grill.  The Williams departed the next day to Cincinnati for Christmas there.  We would meet up again in CC for more birthday celebrations.

Christmas Day was a blur.  The kids, understandably, were up multiple times prior to sunrise and sent back to bed each time.  They finally convinced their groggy parents to suck it up by 8:30.  We had the Haugstad traditional picture on the stairs.

Bryce's big ticket item was Cubs gear and tickets to a game this summer.

The kids each got snorkel gear for the upcoming trip to the Cayman Islands.

A couple days later we headed up to CC to celebrate Great Grammy and Grammy Pammy's birthdays.  Amy and crew drove back from Cincy to be here too.  We got some great family pictures.

The Williams spent two days at our house, giving time for the cousins to be together and the adults some time too.  Why does Colorado have to be so far from Indiana??  We just don't get to see these guys often enough, so we need to make the best of every minute with them.  So, of course that will always entail food.  This time we went to South Street Smokehouse.  Yum.

We also found a couple hours to sneak down to the Chocolate Shop.  Christmas break afforded us little competition for prime seating in the fish bowl.

It'd been a while since either Amy or Jason had been on campus.  The kids enjoyed hanging out with Neil and John.

Shortly after this the Williams headed back to the airport and the kids and I headed up to Chicago for part II of Christmas break.