Christmas in O-H-I-O

The whole gang!

After Chicago, we headed across US 30 in Indiana and on into Ohio to celebrate the holidays with my family.  When we arrived Saturday, we had our Christmas with the whole family.  This year, we had another person to add to the mix, as my niece brought her boyfriend along.  This was our first time meeting him, and he seems like a very nice young man.  It is always fun to have Mom and Dad's house full with all of us.  It was great to see everyone, exchange gifts and eat lots of good food.

Mom and Dad and the 5 of us kids.

Mom and Dad with all 6 of their grandkids!

Girl cousins sharing a chair at the bar.

Laura got a make-your-own-headband kit and was very excited to get to work making her own creations.

Laura had fun working her hips out with her new hula hoop.

Nathan LOVES his new Iron Man costume from Bill & Brenda!

Cousins playing iPad games together.

The next day, the kids had a blast running around the house playing with their cousins.  It was good to see that, even though they hadn't seen each other in a year, the 4 of them picked right up where they left off.  There was a lot of giggling and silliness right up until Maria's family had to head home.

The next few days, we enjoyed a lot of relaxing, playing games and eating (often times too much!).  The only bummer came at lunch time on Christmas Eve when Nathan came down with a pretty bad fever.  He ended up spending the rest of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day in bed.  We finally got the fever to break the following day.  He was a good sport for having to spend all of that time in bed!

Laura goes old school with my old charm necklace.

Another wrinkle came with the weather.  Winter Storm Euclid timed its entrance into Ohio exactly for our scheduled departure time.  Due to the bad weather and Nathan's recovery, we ended up spending an extra day in Ohio.  It is not what we had planned, but it turned out well in the end.  

Snow, ice, wind......brrrr!!!

Now we are safely in our last destination of the trip, Cliff's parents' house.  We are enjoying our annual family retreat here now, and in a few hours, we will welcome his parents back to their own house from a  road trip to St. Louis.  Then, we will enjoy Christmas Round #2 and the New Year with them!

Gina