Christmas Festivities

Sorry it's been awhile. I was busy with end of the semester things and then Christmas, and Urbana, and I just didn't blog. But I'm back for at least a few days with some posts about what I've been up to.

My Christmas festivities started the Saturday after I was done with finals (December 15). We continued my moms family tradition of going bowling and wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. More people participated this year, which was nice and also funny. We make up strange things for us to do while bowling instead of normal bowling. For instance granny style, backwards, under someone's leg, etc. It's a lot of fun to just be silly with the family. The top 4 scores from the first 2 rounds of bowling then played a championship to determine this years winner. Isaac took away the top prize of the "traveling" trophy. I say traveling like that because it's supposed to be traveling, but people just leave it at my grandparent's house (which they love).

Then I sunday I helped with the Christmas program at Hope. My job was to help walk my class up front and then back to our classroom. It was a really cute program based on How the Grinch Stole Christmas and they all did a great job of memorizing their lines and knowing the actions the songs.

On the 22nd we headed to my dad's side for Christmas. We did the usual gift exchange-this years theme was 'as seen on tv'. I ended up getting grey away and a hearing aid thing. I really wanted a chia tree, but it was stolen from me too many times. It was good to see a lot of my cousins that I haven't seen for a while and to catch up with my family.

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandparent's church for our traditional oyster soup and chicken noodle soup dinner before the service. This is with my grandma's side of the family so a lot of our extended relatives. I mainly hung out with Carina and Isaac and a few of my younger cousins. Isaac and Carina also began to master the art of cats cradle once again with the help of my aunt and her smart phone.

Christmas day we woke up and my grandpa's side of the family came over for the day. We have Swedish pancakes and then catch up throughout the morning. We also usually have frozen pizza and beef stew for lunch. I spent the day talking with family and then played some games with my younger cousins. After everyone started leaving Carina, Isaac, and I went to the movie Silver Linings Playbook in Sioux City. My cousins from my mom's side Lacey and Kylie were also there so we sat with them. It was a really good movie that I would recommend to anyone.

We celebrated Christmas with my immediate family on the 26th when we were all back home.