A Wonderful Christmas!

 No quilting happened this week, but we had the most wonderful Christmas ever!  All five of our daughters came with their families and we had the best time celebrating and just being together!

Love seeing all these faces in one photo!  We started out with a fun visit to Shore Acres and enjoyed a lovely sunset, then had a great time seeing the lights - it was pretty cold, but such a beautiful clear night!

We then gathered for a meal at a local restaurant and warmed up!  It's tricky making sure all these people get fed on a regular basis, but we took turns preparing meals, and with this night and a pizza night it worked out great and no one felt worn out by all the food prep and clean-up!  

Christmas Eve started out with attending church as a family for the first time in many years!  So very special!  

After that we went to the kid's vacation rental to enjoy a light lunch and spent the afternoon playing games (Dutch Blitz).  We came back to our house for dinner (Valley of the Sun soup!) and presents.  This year we did a Secret Santa for the Adults and older boys, and it worked out super well, so much easier than buying a ton of small gifts for everyone!   We decided to keep this tradition for future years.

Our cute little Santa had a bit of a tough time with all the sugar and excitement and was super tired!  Isn't this outfit super cute!  Those bell bottom pants were so adorable on her!

Christmas morning saw our first departure - we had to share time with other family in Oregon.  The rest of us settled in to work a jigsaw puzzle after another game of Dutch Blitz.    With several of us working on it we were done well before dinner time! Our youngest daughter left that afternoon as they had a very early morning flight back to Colorado. We enjoyed our dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes and Brussel sprouts, then cleaned up before the remaining kids left for the night.  

This sweet girl was a great addition to our festivities and was so good.  Scamper even tolerated her and all the company fairly well, for a grumpy old man cat!  We made a make shift barrier of bar stools so she could stay in the dining room, and it worked quite well.  That was one of the things we were a little concerned about with so many people here, but it was all good.

Tuesday after some more game playing, we took a drive out to Shore Acres again, this time to do some hiking and see the ocean.  It was chilly, but not too bad!  The trail was a bit squishy in spots, but no one slipped or anything.  The waves were pretty neat to watch, too!  We did try to watch the time so it didn't get dark on us!

We headed home for our last evening of family time, and the sky turned a lovely pink!

The next morning the rest of our travelers had to leave.  We had such a great time.  Definitely a time to treasure - and good memories.  I am very grateful!  Can't believe it's over already, and now it's New Year's Eve!  I hope that 2023 was a good one for you, and you made some good memories as well.  Here's to the New Year and making more good memories (and quilts!)

Happy New Year!!