The Christmas fun.

Well this week was spent between 2 states, 3 if you count layovers.
We had a nice Christmas with the Liddeke part of the family and all of the kids got some great presents from tea sets to new babies to high chairs for olde babies. Alisabeth made out major. She got bath toys, books, stuffed animals, and clothes. Our Christmas draw also went well, however it was interupted by poor Lisa getting a bad pain in her side and having to be taken to the hospital. She was fine, but we ended up doing the draw without her because there were several families that wouldn't be able to make it back for a rematch. I ended up with seashell earings. Jason got an etcher. We both also got chocolates and other goodies. On top of all of that dinner was absolutely wonderful.
Jason's mom's birthday party was also fun. She had burst the surprise and knew we'd be there, but oh well. We had steak dinner and lots of noise from more kids than adults!
We also got to see some friends and enjoy re-making aquaintances.

Then we had the infamous trip to Florida. Jason and my mom and Al left a day before me becuase they were driving. This meant I had the whole house to myself and Alisabeth. . . so what did I do? Cordend off most of the house and let her play while I slept! I'm such a great mother aren't I? I made sure she had plenty of food and water :)

Flying with her is great, if only she had enough room to move. That's what frustated her most. She wasn't bothered by pressure or height or people or anything. We took plenty of snack foods and she ate them all on the trip. She did amazing I think because she wasn't even willing to take a nap, so the whole trip was on only the night before. It was only when we got on the airplane that was smaller than my room that she became aggressively annoyed at the lack of movement. That trip was a bit long, but that was the final leg, so once I got off the plane Jason took her and I was able to just relax a bit.
Our time here has been nice. Teri (my aunt) came in the same day that Jason got here and so we all stayed at her house for the week. The whole time she was here her daughter lovingly brought over the twins (8 years old) and they spent the whole trip at grandma's. It was neat being able to spend that much time with them because I don't know them very well. They are sweaties, however I can already see the little defiant streak that will give their mother headaches galore when they hit their teenage years :)
Christmas here was also a blast. Every year seems to be different but none of the parents were directing anything so I just started handing out presents with names on them and everyone started opening all at the same time. I enjoyed it but about half-way through both my mom and Teri were protesting that we should have been opening one at a time because they were missing the kid's gifts. I told them "oh well." My aunt Willa was also able to make it down for a few days so we had a nice little gaggle of Gardner girls running around making trouble.
Finally yesterday everyone left, the twins went home and Jason and I were left alone in Teri's house until tomorrow. Jason and my mom and Al leave tomorrow evening and then I'll move over the my Nana's house until I leave Tuesday morning.
All in all Florida is wonderful. It's been slightly humid, but the weather was so nice that we haven't even needed a sweater. Jason and I raked up a pile of leaves and Alisabeth spent about an hour just sitting in it playing with everything. It was so cool.
We got lots of pictures, but I forgot to bring them with me so I'll add them sometime soon.

As a side note I also got a new digital camera from aunt Willa. I guess she's had it for like a year waiting to give it to me. I was supposed to keep it quiet and pretend like I had had it forever, but I was so excited about it that it didn't happen. I read all the manuals and started snapping pictures with a fervor I've never had before. . . then I found the color setting which allows you to black and white everything except one color. Oh that was so much fun I spent about 2 hours playing with it taking pictures of everything from Alisabeth and family to random shots of the kid's legos :)

I'll include some of the better ones there too :)

That was our week in a nutshell. It was a blast. I hear Rexburg was a little inundated, and I can't say I'm sorry I wasn't there. Back to Tucson . . . guess I'll have to dig out my sweater again :)