Rockets and Christmas Gifts

Lexie and I just finished our Family Christmas Tour the other day.  It was a lot of fun but exhausting, nonetheless.  Friday night after I got off work at UPS, we drove up to Jason and Kim's place in Litchfield Park to hang out with them and Ryan and Kathrin.  We stayed the night and by the next morning, Jared and his family (including the adorable newborn Anna Jean Bates) and Amy and Cory arrived.

Caleb proving what a good big brother he will be.

We spent the morning hanging out and eating--two of the greatest reasons to get together as a family, in my opinion.  We also happen to have a "Rocketeer" in our family named Cory McDowell who brought his rocket collection to shoot off.

The boys were pretty into watching the rockets go off.  They even had a lot of fun chasing them down once they landed/crashed!

His rockets were pretty sweet--the biggest one was my favorite because it had a slower take-off (kind of like a space shuttle).

Then we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa (Mom and Dad) Bates' house for a great Christmas Eve Dinner!  We really had to discipline ourselves not to overeat because there was so much good food there--not to mention the desserts!

The next morning, we went to church and then had our own little Christmas celebration.

Gotta Love Amazon.com (cheap used movies!)

Then we went over to the Longs to open our gifts there (more movies!) and see what everyone had gotten.  After that (my fingers are getting tired just writing all of this), we went to Grandma and Grandpa Longs to see them and exchange gifts.  Then we went back to the Longs (Lexie's parents) and hung out for the rest of the night.  

The next day, we hung out at Jason and Kim's again, drove around their new Polaris Ranger and went to the  mall.

By the end of the weekend, we had definitely enjoyed ourselves but were ready to be home!