Finishing off the Holiday

I am back at work today and we really enjoyed the time off. I have a hard time remembering what we did when and what we ate on what day and all that stuff but I have some pictures to help remember some of it so that’s what I’ll post today.

We had 2 more Christmases since the last post. One was at my uncle dans.

We had a big Christmas Eve dinner and visited with our family and then it was time for presents.

The kids did great and we got to stay pretty late.

Once home we got the girls in pajamas and started getting ready for Santa.

Once his snacks were ready we got a book and blanket and read The Night Before Christmas.

In the morning we opened our stockings and a few presents but the pictures are still on the camera. We played and relaxed and cleaned up the house the rest of Christmas morning. Then we went out for Chinese Buffet with our friends Jon, Briana and Olive and stuffed our faces then hung out with them the rest of the day.

Our other Christmas was at my cousin Ruth’s house. We forgot to bring the good camera and my cell phone did not do a great job.

The girls ran around crazy and had a great time. I think it was probably the best food of all the parties. The kids got even more presents.

The girls are pros at this point and we had a lot of helpers watching them so this Christmas was pretty easy.

We ate a lot of good food all break long.

Lily and I made some Cinnamon rolls for breakfast one morning.

And Izzy, Heath and I made a rose apple pie with a bourbon glaze. (I used Cinnamon whiskey instead of bourbon)

It was kind of a fun project

We made a lot of creations from lots of leftovers from parties too.

The eating was pretty out of hand so we tried to balance it out with a little exercise.

Pumpkin got to ride her bike on the trail while Heath and I jogged and Bean rode the stroller.

We watched some ducks for a while as we took a break.

We also went for a long bike ride w/ the girls in the trailer.

We took our break at the park and let the kids play.

It seemed like ever day we cleaned up the house and then the kids spread new toys all over it again. Yesterday as they were down for naps we cleaned up again and moved everything away from the kitchen table area. Once it was clear we cut out a section of the carpet and pulled it up.

Then we pulled up the padding.

At first it was really exciting…

Then it got more and more troublesome.

The underside of the carpet and all the pad looked really clean and great but we found worse and worse spots on the floor as we went.

Here is the worst of it.

Pulling up the carpets and finishing the hardwoods has always been the plan but we moved on this area first since Lily often spills food on the carpet.

We are not sure how to proceed now, I would guess the damage is so bad we would have to replace boards instead of refinish. Also we don’t know if it is just this room or the whole house that has all these stains.

If you have any suggestions or recommendations on experts let us know.

One last piece of good news. This car showed up.

A guy hooked us up w/ google fiber

And we got to cancel our Time Warner account. It was so nice and I have not had to restart the modem once since.