Christmas 2008 - or, the Family Road Trip of Justice

Merry Christmas! (Yeah, we're late. Hey, we moved to Japan!) Packing, moving, outprocessing Tyndall, and visiting family all over all at the same time made for a memorable Christmas this year! We got to go up to Ben's Dad's for family Christmas number 1 the weekend before, so it was great to see all the brothers and sister and families full of children. The kiddos exchanged names and of course the most popular toys were ones that involved swords or things that made noise. Not real swords, it wasn't *that* much fun. We don't have any pictures from there because Santa hadn't brought Emily her present just yet! We also went to Roger and Linda's house at Smith Lake for a nice visit, and spent some time keeping Jack out of the Christmas tree. From there we were back south to Mobile via Panama City to take care of more outprocessing, and Santa managed to find us all at Emily's parents house! Even though the whole family didn't end up at the pool hall again (long story) we had a wonderful Christmas! Doug, Murey and Colby came down from Birmingham - but left a forwarding note for Santa so don't worry, he found all of us.

Papa has no chance, he doesn't even know how to load it yet...

Murey, Cousin Ashley, Nana and Emily

Oh, we're not done yet. On the 26th it was time for Ben's Mom's family Christmas trip, so we left Mobile and drove up to Tennessee where we had all rented a cabin. Instead of exchanging gifts, we gave each other family time for a long weekend and it was great! A bit of a drive, but definitely worth it! We exchanged gifts with Shelby and Olivia, had a birthday party for them one day, and were basically lazy for 4 days. We'll just say we provided our own entertainment, if you could only see us play charades...

Yay! Another Christmas!

Anna loves her some hot tub!

Everybody loves the hot tub!

Uncle Ben and Emma. Racing Cart. It's go time.

Happy Birthday! Yes, that's a cheeseball birthday cake.

Charades...

...VERY funny!

Merry Christmas!

Still not done. Oh no. We drove back down to Panama City, via Cullman to see Ben's Dad, Brenda and Eli (and Sabrina!), for my final day signing out of the base and then back to Mobile for a bit, then up to Atlanta to visit sister Luci, Mike, Sarah Campbell and Jack. After 2 days there, its time for the honeymoon to Hawaii!