Smith Forever After: Christmas Break

Yet again, I'm dropping the blogging ball. Oh well.

Christmas this year was fantastic!!! I was able to get three days off work (plus we were scheduled to be off for four days) so we took the red-eye out of Salt Lake City on Monday the 22nd and arrived in NC Tuesday morning. Chelsea lent us her car for the duration of our trip and it was such a blessing! We picked her car up in Charlotte and then drove north to Greensboro.

My family just moved to NC at the beginning of November and so everything this Christmas would be new. They bought a house just a few minutes from my dad's parents and his brother so for the first time in my lifetime, my family is living close to other family! I loved being able to see my grandparents and cousins this holiday.

Zach was supposed to get home before we did but a job interview held him up in Ohio. He finally got there late on Christmas Eve. My family doesn't have a ton of Christmas traditions but one of my favorites is watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve. It took some finagling this year for us to all fit in the living room but it was worth it.

Grandma and Grandpa Tucker

For most of our visit, we slept at my uncles house down the road but Meredith wanted us all to sleep at home on Christmas Eve. Since this house is significantly smaller than our last house with less than half the beds, we slept on the living room floor... We were actually going to sleep in Noah's twin size bed but then just fell asleep watching Everybody Loves Raymond (what else is new) and stayed on the floor. I'm so glad the majority of my siblings are teenagers or older now and appreciate sleeping in on Christmas. I used to be a grouch when I was the only one who wanted to sleep in!

I think I'm still sleeping...

Nate finally got the Ipad he's wanted since before we were married!

Isn't he precious?? Socks, candy and scented candle wax in his stocking. I'm the best.

We spent Christmas day lounging around and then went to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas dinner with the rest of the family. Why didn't we get a group picture with everyone?!?!

My immediate family hasn't been all together since our wedding so we took the time to get a family picture. Of course, not everyone wanted to be in the picture but that's what happens with six kids. We took this picture on the land that they are going to start building a house on. Next year we could have Christmas in yet another house!

Eli and Meredith decided to have a photoshoot in the field. I wish I stole some of their pictures but I only have a few of the ones we took on our phone...

Our family gift exchange...I got a baby name book from my cousin. It's the same baby name book I got him a few years ago and he just had a baby so he told me it was my turn. He was nice enough to cross off Everett, since that's the name they used haha

The day after Christmas we headed to a cabin 2.5 hours away where Nate's family was staying for Christmas! What a treat that we got to see both families even though they technically live in different states now! While there, we went to a gem mine, watched some movies, played some games, went out to eat and just had fun!

View from the cabin.

Breakfast (which was really lunch). We found a FANTASTIC place to eat which was totally worth the forever wait. The kids didn't love it as much as the adults as the food was a twist on regular breakfast flavors.

At the "mine"

We would steal her if we could...

On Sunday we left the cabin and headed back to my house. We made it just in time for church where I happened to run into one of my friends from the Hill Cumorah Pageant and school. After church we went to an extended family dinner with my grandpa's brother's family. It was fun to meet some more of the Tucker clan! The next few days were spent playing lots of games, watching movies, and relaxing.

Playing Five Crowns. Obviously I was the only one who knew a picture was being taken...

Playing Charades.

This is how we fell asleep one night. We're so cute.

One day we went to downtown Greensboro. While we were there we went to the Civil Right's Museum. The museum is located in the old Woolworth's dime store where the Greensboro sit-in's took place in 1960. It was amazing to see this little bit of history and it is so well preserved. Of course, you can't take pictures sooooooo yeahhhh. I learned that my dad's middle school principal was married to one of the original college freshman who started the sit-in. I also had never thought of the fact that my grandma grew up right in the midst of the civil rights movement in the south! She remember the sit-ins happening and having to use separate bathrooms etc.

Both of the above pictures are from Wikipedia.

Walking around downtown Greensboro...

Meredith with her imaginary boyfriend.

If you're still looking at these pictures...you're crazy. But I'm going to keep going!

The Monday after Christmas Zach left for Germany (that's a long story...) and then on Wednesday Meredith and Eli left for Ohio. So with just Nate and I left at home we decided to abandon the family and go visit his family for the rest of the trip. Back to Charlotte we went! It was really great because not only did we get to see Chelsea's family, but Jessica's family drove up from Georgia for the New Year so we got to spend more time with them too.

The Smith's traditionally have appetizers on New Years Eve and throw a fun party for friends. Since it was just us three families, we decided to do our own version of this and buy our favorite appetizers from local restaurants. We got apps from probably 12 different places and it was delicious!!! Such a fun idea!

Playing Tripoly to pass the time.