East Coast Tour: Part 2
Part 2, finally :)
We headed down to DE a day late, while it was still snowing considerably. But as I mentioned, the trip went pretty well. The roads were mostly cleared, and apart from a 30 min stretch at the MA/CT border, and another stretch by the Newark airport (which was a white-out), we did great. We saw a lot of cars on the side of the road, but thankfully it wasn't us on the side of the road!
We made it in town for Linda's big dinner (which we had originally thought we wouldn’t make when we had to leave a day late). In fact, we drove directly to her house from MA! It was a massive group of people and it was a great time with delicious food! David's family also drove straight to Linda's house and got there shortly after we did. We got to see all of David's Aunts and Uncles and Cousins that were in town. Isaac tried a bunch of new foods at dinner (oh the pork, it was so delicious and Isaac thought so too!), and Kayla enjoyed seeing everyone (and running around since she's been cooped up in a car seat all day!). That dinner was such a fun time!
While in DE we had the chance to visit lots of relatives. We stayed at Grandma's house, and enjoyed spending time with her and the other families that stayed there.
We did 1/2 of our Christmas there, and were showered with gifts.
We also spent quite a bit of time at Pop-pop and Lilly's house. We did the other 1/2 of Christmas there, and again were showered with presents.
I was able to get a "4-generation of Kenneth men", which was really important to me to have. We gave Isaac the middle name Kenneth, as an honor to our family, as it is also David's middle name and his dad and grandfather's first names. We forgot to take this picture at Steph's wedding and I was so glad to have the chance to take it at Christmas this year!
We also got to spend some time with Aunt Hennie and as always, enjoy our cheese-steak sandwiches! Also, she has this stuffed little boy, and previously Kayla has enjoyed playing with him. Well, this year Isaac was dressed up very similar to the doll and it was pretty hilarious to see Isaac with it!
We spent an evening with Grandpa and Cathy too. Kayla enjoyed singing Christmas Carols for Grandpa and throwing packing peanuts everywhere!
Both Kayla and Isaac really enjoyed spending time with Aunt Stephie and Uncle Brian. They are both so good with our kids, and our kids just love them too (note: Kayla is much harder to photograph these days!)!
Steph and Brian left on Thursday, but we stayed in town with just mom and dad for several more days. We spent that time at either Pop-pop's or Grandma's house, enjoying yummy dinners everywhere we went!
We also got a chance to go to a local house where they decorate for Christmas with about 1 million (or more) lights! It was just amazing all that they have there. Kayla absolutely LOVED it; she kept running from area to area, saying how much she loved this and that. It was truly a kid’s wonderland!
Since there is so much family in town when we travel there, it's always a bit of a whirlwind visit for us. We try to have visits with everyone, and it seems that we are eating each meal at a different house! This time we tried to see everyone when Steph and Brian were in town, so after they left we had some down time. It was nice and relaxing those last few days, and we really enjoyed spending some time with just mom and dad.
It's really fun to be able to spend that much time on vacation. I love spending the extra time with David and having us all together for those 2.5 weeks. And we love visiting our family. Thankfully, both of our kids are really flexible and do well traveling in the car and sleeping in different beds and rooms, and eating different food and at different times. It does take a toll on us all, and on the drive back both kids had bad colds and we were all a little worn out. But it is such a fun annual vacation for us, we really love being able to do that!!