Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation. We were able to leave in the early evening on Dec 19th and drive out to Las Vegas for two weeks. It was so wonderful to be able to visit with our family. We spent the majority of the first week with the Clayton's and the majority of the 2nd week with the Pierce's. Dad and Kay were out of town the first week and so we celebrated Christmas with them the following Sunday.

One of our first orders of business when we got into town was for Justin to see his twin Brother Brett, who finished PA school in September and moved from Pennsylvania back to Las Vegas. Justin and Brett had not seen each other in over 2 1/2 years. So it was a long awaited reunion. (It was also good to see the rest of Brett's family... didn't mean to leave the rest of you out) We had a lot of fun being back with them and look forward to another visit sometime in the future. Though we are not sure when that will be.

It was so wonderful to be able to spend so much time with both our families. We only wish it was more often.

As for Christmas, everyone made out quite well with gifts, despite the fact that we had to make it back in our van with all of the gifts!


The girls got new bikes for Christmas. Santa left them in Lubbock for them though! :)


Justin, and apparently Collin, got a new Volcan something or other nerf machine gun for Christmas.


Each year the Clayton Family acts out the Nativity while reading it. Here are a couple pictures from that.

We got the kids all dressed up for Church the Sunday before we left for Vegas. We tried to get a relly good cute picture of them...unfortunately, they didn't come out to well. This one was the best, and I guess it really does capture the kids the way they really are...

From Our attempt

That is the extent of pictures that we got for Christmas. I am appalled at myself for our lack of picture taking throughout the whole time in Vegas. We will have to get the rest of the pictures people have from Angie and whoever else took pictures while we were there.

All in all, it was a fun trip We enjoyed the time that we were able to have with people, and we really do wish that there was opportunity for more trips. As of right now, it is looking like Christmas 2009 will be spent as a family here in Lubbock. It makes us all very sad that we may not see all of our families for a long while. Hopefully we can fix that.

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and for those that don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays.