After Joey's birthday weekend, I was thinking it was time for me to focus on the upcoming Christmas holiday. After all we had already celebrated the first two Sundays in Advent. There were decorations to get out and put up, shopping to do, and parties to attend. Saturday the 10th, we went to the annual Christmas party hosted by our dear friends. That is the one night a year that we REALLY don't worry about staying out too late or getting home at a decent time.
The next morning as we were getting ready for church, we got a call from Grandma Meinhart, saying that Great-Grandpa Boedeker had passed away through the night. As soon as I saw that she was calling at that time of the day on a Sunday, I knew something was wrong. There will be pictures and more on Grandpa later, but for purposes here, that just meant that we quickly made arrangements and packed up the family to drive back down to Illinois / St. Louis for the funeral and services. We left Michigan on Wednesday and drove back the following Sunday.
By this time, it was less than a week before Christmas. We quickly got Christmas cards out and did virtually all of our shopping online. We got by with the decorations that were already up and didn't worry about getting out any more boxes. We went to our very first Christmas program at SSA on Monday night. It was unlike any other Christmas program that I had ever attended. Sure there were still the cute little songs sung by the younger kids in their mixture of shy and barely audible and confident almost yelling voices. But, there was also a Eucharistic procession and a short time of family prayer and adoration in the chapel in front of the creche. Despite having three very tired young kids on our hands, it was definitely a good experience.
The rest of the week was a flurry of tying up things at work, unpacking and re-packing, wrapping presents, and getting ready for our traditional Midwest Christmas tour. First stop…Pittsburgh.
It was Friday by the time we had ourselves ready for our Christmas tour. We loaded up as much as we could on Thursday night and headed out the next morning. We stopped in Aurora to have lunch, spend the afternoon, and eat dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Shibata. Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn, and TJ were also there so it was good to catch up with them. We then drove the rest of the way to Pittsburgh and spent the night at Aunt Jess'.
The next day was Christmas Eve. Everyone came over to Aunt Jess' to celebrate. There was pickle finding, craft making, present opening (and playing), church going, and of course lots of eating. The day went by quickly. The following day, we all went over to Uncle James' and Aunt Jaclyn's house. Uncle James made a ham and there were more than 10 kinds of Christmas cookies (thanks mostly to Aunt Jaclyn) to be eaten. We spent the day there just playing and enjoying the company. The day after Christmas, Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn and TJ had to head back to State College and Grandpa and Grandma drove back to Ohio. The rest of us went back over to James' and Jaclyn's house to visit some more and eat more of those Christmas cookies. Aunt Jaclyn was such a trooper to have so much company…did I mention that she was literally only a couple of days from her due date during all of this!!
The next morning as we were getting ready for church, we got a call from Grandma Meinhart, saying that Great-Grandpa Boedeker had passed away through the night. As soon as I saw that she was calling at that time of the day on a Sunday, I knew something was wrong. There will be pictures and more on Grandpa later, but for purposes here, that just meant that we quickly made arrangements and packed up the family to drive back down to Illinois / St. Louis for the funeral and services. We left Michigan on Wednesday and drove back the following Sunday.
By this time, it was less than a week before Christmas. We quickly got Christmas cards out and did virtually all of our shopping online. We got by with the decorations that were already up and didn't worry about getting out any more boxes. We went to our very first Christmas program at SSA on Monday night. It was unlike any other Christmas program that I had ever attended. Sure there were still the cute little songs sung by the younger kids in their mixture of shy and barely audible and confident almost yelling voices. But, there was also a Eucharistic procession and a short time of family prayer and adoration in the chapel in front of the creche. Despite having three very tired young kids on our hands, it was definitely a good experience.
The rest of the week was a flurry of tying up things at work, unpacking and re-packing, wrapping presents, and getting ready for our traditional Midwest Christmas tour. First stop…Pittsburgh.
It was Friday by the time we had ourselves ready for our Christmas tour. We loaded up as much as we could on Thursday night and headed out the next morning. We stopped in Aurora to have lunch, spend the afternoon, and eat dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Shibata. Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn, and TJ were also there so it was good to catch up with them. We then drove the rest of the way to Pittsburgh and spent the night at Aunt Jess'.
The next day was Christmas Eve. Everyone came over to Aunt Jess' to celebrate. There was pickle finding, craft making, present opening (and playing), church going, and of course lots of eating. The day went by quickly. The following day, we all went over to Uncle James' and Aunt Jaclyn's house. Uncle James made a ham and there were more than 10 kinds of Christmas cookies (thanks mostly to Aunt Jaclyn) to be eaten. We spent the day there just playing and enjoying the company. The day after Christmas, Uncle Joel, Aunt Jenn and TJ had to head back to State College and Grandpa and Grandma drove back to Ohio. The rest of us went back over to James' and Jaclyn's house to visit some more and eat more of those Christmas cookies. Aunt Jaclyn was such a trooper to have so much company…did I mention that she was literally only a couple of days from her due date during all of this!!
On Tuesday, we started our trek from Pittsburgh to Illinois. We prepared mentally for it. It ended up taking us close to 12 hours in all, but that included stopping both for lunch and dinner. We made really good time during the first half, even getting to just east of Indy. But then, in the last two hours of driving time, we stopped 4 times. We threw in the towel and stopped at a little Mexican restaurant for dinner. The kids loved it. Marie got to try out the Spanish she's been learning at school. "May we have dos boxes, please?" We finally made it "home" welcomed by Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark, Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Matt and got the kids to bed as soon as we could.
We stayed down in Illinois for four days. While there we took Joey and Stevie to get their hair cut; it was Stevie's first. (Thanks, Ang!) We spent a good deal of time getting ready to host a baby shower for Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mark, which was held in Grandma and Grandpa's brand new dining room. We got to go to the Meinhart Christmas and enjoy the always heated Meinhart Mishap Award competition while catching up with quite a few of our relatives on that side. And last, but not least, we went to a bridal shower for the "Meinhart" next in line, Jordan Traub, who is marrying Cousin Brad in just a couple of weeks.
We celebrated New Year's Eve with drinks, food, and a rousing game of
Mexican Train Domino's (house rules). But probably most exciting was
getting the news that our new niece, Joy Aiko had been born! I couldn't
think of a better way to bring in the new year!
Needless to say, our time down south was a busy time, but as always loaded with tons of fun. During "down" time, the kids got to help "the guys" install some shelving, drive the tractor, feed the kitties, read lots of books, visit the farm, and generally get lots of well-deserved attention. We drove back to Michigan on Monday which turned out to be not a very good day to be driving. There wasn't a lot of snow, but the temperature was just right and there was just enough to make the roads treacherous at times. In fact, we spent over an hour and a half in Indy stopped on the freeway and pulled over north of Fort Wayne due to almost white out conditions. Miraculously, we didn't have any screaming children and no urgent potty issues. We made it home late and got the kids in bed just as soon as we could. Thankfully, Marie had another day before she had to start school. Poor Jon had to get up the next morning and get to work.
As with years past, the Christmas road trip was busy and tiring, but we came away from it so thankful to have had the chance to see and visit with so much of our family and knowing that we wouldn't blink an eye about doing it again…in about a year. :)
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