Visit with Stephanie's Family-12/19 & 20/'08

On a Friday morning, we drove just under 2 hours to Steph's house. We spent Friday and most of Sat. with them. We mostly just hung out and had fun. This picture shows some of Steph's living room and their tree. You can also see their 2 Jack Russels. Gretchen is spotted and Q-Tip is by Robert.

Emma loved their tree, as it had twinkling lights AND they were colored! At home we have white and they are stationary-no twinkles. Next year, we'll see what we can do about that!

Posing by the tree. At home it is hard to get good pictures by our tree, as it is by the big front window. You have so much light and the blinds showing in the photos. Next year we will also remedy that! No tree by the window!

When we arrived, the dogs immediately started barking and growling at"strangers' and it scared Emma TO DEATH! She cried and cried! But, as you can see she made friends with Gretchen, at least. We got a really gross picture of that too! Gretchen had just been licking Emma's face (even though I tried to prevent that) and there is a long string of slobber from Emma to Gretchen! ICKY!

Halie by the tree. We were trying to get her to smell the white snowflake, as it is scented and was from Nana. She did 1 time and it was too quick and we got no picture!

Two sisters and their daughters. We had such fun just talking, laughing, playing games and hanging out. Oh, we did make pretzels. Two kinds. Chocolate molded pretzels and the kind you dip and roll. We dipped in caramel and chocolate and rolled them in coconut, peppermint bits, sprinkles, peanuts, etc... We gave the guys some in their stockings, sent some to Kansas with Dad for the other Grandkids and are saving the rest for the New Year's Eve party.

A few family ones before we left.

Martin rode out in the pasture with Robert and took some pictures of cows, a bull and even some deer. We got to see the horses that stay right in the paddock next to their house, as well. Martin also took his kite bag with us and got to fly kites for a while on Sat. morning.