Christmas Part Two of Two

The Monday after Christmas we drove down to my family's in NJ for our Christmas brunch with them.  Yes I love brunch so much that I convinced my family we need to do brunch too and they agreed... probably because they realized that brunch is AWESOME :P

We had pretty much the same menu except mom's stuffed french toast was much more sugary and rich, which was perfectly fine with me :)  Christy had made bacon and egg quiche and Dawn brought baked oatmeal which Katy couldn't get enough of,  I took fruit and dip (of course) and bacon wrapped sausages, yum!  Have I mentioned that I like brunch? ;P

After we ate the kids were all pretty anxious to open their presents but waited their turns so patiently, look at them all lined up in a row waiting!  

The big people had exchanged names for the kids so they each got one gift from the Aunts and Uncles and one gift from Grammy and Pop-pop.  Christy crocheted these adorable hats for Chase and Jo!

Chase's owl hat which he loves and always gets lots of attention when we go out:

Katy got a little popper that she likes to push all around the house.

After presents we went out for our Christmas day hike.  It was a bit cold but really not too bad.  My Grandmother Yoder had come down to be with us too so that was really nice.

Katy fell asleep on the way over there and slept throughout the whole hike!

Dawn put hats on her feet because we didn't have a blanket, haha!  Our whole group:

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how our Christmas day hikes got started, maybe my mom or dad would remember and could tell me.  I like the tradition though :)

We left shortly after getting back from the hike.  We had volunteered to take my Grandma back up to her house so we had quite a bit of driving to do.  It was such a nice time being together again though.

Ricky had off the week between Christmas and New Years.  He did some hunting with his muzzle loader to no avail and helped me out around the house quite a bit.  He organized and rearranged my kitchen cabinets for me, they look so much nicer.  Wednesday we decided to go on a little field trip.  We were originally going to go to an airport museum but it turned out to be a really windy cold day and we didn't want to walk around a hanger so we went to the North Museum in Lancaster.  Ricky and I had never been there before but Patty had taken the kids before a couple times so they knew what it was all about and were very excited.  It was a very interesting place!  Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no pictures :(

The next day Patty and I took the kids to the Science Factory in Lancaster (2 field trips in 2 days? What?!)  I had never been there either and neither had my kids.  It was a really neat place and we all enjoyed ourselves a lot.  It was like a big warehouse filled with science experiments.  All interactive for the kids... and adults :P

they were working hard together at this.  They pulled up this plunger and then let it go and the force of the dropping plunger shoots up a tennis ball on the other side, way up to the ceiling.  It was pretty cool :)

playing with magnets...

Chase loved this "building the dam" project.  He spent a lot of time here... building the dam, and knocking it down.

Bubbles:

hmmm, I guess big kid like bubble too :P

Joanna loved this thing.  You stuff in a little parachute guy in this hole and it shoots up and out really quick and then floats down.  She liked stuffing it in and then trying to catch him before he hit the ground.

Dominic playing with the Chinese water bowl:

So it was a really nice week.  We got spoiled having Ricky home so much and it was hard to get back to business this week.  Last Saturday we had gone out hunting together.  We took along a little .22 for squirrel hunting too but amazingly they all disappeared when the time came that we wanted to shoot them :P  we didn't see any deer either.  I had walked all around  the little stand of woods we were hunting in hopes of trying to push the deer toward Ricky but no luck.  Oh well, at least I got a good hike in with my big heavy boots of I'm sure I burned lots of calories!
Last Monday, Ricky still had off and it was his mom's 60th birthday so we all went out to breakfast at Shady Maple to celebrate.  Dominic had school but we went early enough that he was still able to join us.
Then Tuesday is was back to school and work for everyone.