This Christmas has been extra special this year. It seems like we have been celebrating the whole month of December. Since Alex was leaving on her mission early and we were going on our cruise for Christmas we all decided to celebrate Christmas early. So on Friday night Dec 10, we had our Christmas eve traditions. We first went to our super fun ward party that celebrated Christmas around the world. Then we came home and watched our annual Mr. Kruger's Christmas, opened up our Christmas jammies and went to bed and waited for Santa. And lucky for us he came!! Brooke, TJ, Madi and Steve all got a new memory foam topper and new sheets for their bed. We also opened up our exchange gifts from our siblings and cousins. The kids gave mom 2 fantastic picture bracelets. One with all 5 kids and one with just pictures of the "Golden Boy." They gave Dad some golf balls and socks. Brooke got awesome dishes from Eli, TJ got some soccer and jean shorts from Madi, Madi got some spending money from Steve and Steve got some spending money from TJ. We then had our Christmas morning omelets. And since we live with the Hartvigsen's we were bound to Uncle Greg's rule of Egg Nog. They all agreed it wasn't too bad when diluted with a lot of milk.
The next day we went to Alex's missionary farewell, said a tearful goodbye to her and then jumped in the van for our road trip to CA. We drove as far as Primm NV, just past Las Vegas. Then Monday morning we drove 4 more hours to Long Beach CA and hopped on our Carnival Cruise ship.
The cruise was so much fun. Of course there was tons of food. We had fun with kareoke, bingo, comedy nights, card games, book reading, swimming pool and more food!
At Catalina Island, we rented golf carts and drove around the beautiful island. Our day at Ensenada was spent shopping and watching "La Bufadora." We spent an hour at our own private beach.
Unfortunately, our two days at Disneyland turned into one wet and rainy day. We hit most of our favorite attractions but decided to skip a second soggy day at the park. The highlight of Disney was the new show called World of Color. It was an amazing show of water and lights. We saw it from the back and it was still wonderful, but someday we will have to see it from the front. Grandma and Grandpa were so great to help us with Eli both on the ship and taking him back to the hotel so he could get out of the rain. It was fun to have them on this trip with us.
Since we left for home a little early, we had time to see a movie in Las Vegas. The boys saw TRON and the girls saw Tangled. The next morning we left early, hoping to miss the storm. It was a little scary. We felt so blessed to make it home safe. There were were too many accidents.
We had the best Christmas ever making and sharing memories with eachother. We have the best family and the best times together.
Then, only a week later we celebrated the "real" Christmas. The Hartvigsen's were gone on their Christmas Vacation ( we both spent our trips in Rainy Southern California and their record breaking rainfall!!!) But Santa found us again!! This time the kids had one more gift to open from Mom and Dad. Brooke got a Clearplay DVD player for College, TJ got combat boots for ROTC, Madi got some indoor soccer cleats and Steve got a kinect game for the X box and Santa left one more gift for the family an X box with the Kinect. The kids were surprised and had fun all day with the new amazing technology.
Hartvigsen's returned later that day and we started a new tradition... family football game in the backyard. It was tons of fun. Hartvigsens beat Fergusons 6 to 5. Carol got a bloody lip from a tackle with Janice and we were ALL sore the next day!!
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