Fun in Dallas

The kids and I took a quick trip up to Dallas for a couple of days to visit my family in between Christmas and New Year. We missed having Don with us again, as he stayed behind to work.  We started off the trip by arriving in time on Tuesday to celebrate my niece Ashlynn's 14th birthday with her.  She is such a beautiful, kind young woman and we love her so much!

After spending a night at Bob's house, I left Hayley with her girl cousins and took Alex and Anna with us up to Grandpa and Grandmommie's house to spend the night.  We had a lot of fun playing games, including getting beat up on in basketball. 

We had the gym to ourselves and the kids had a blast.  Luke didn't want to change out of his pj's that day, but for some reason,  it just worked for him.

Thursday Bob, Cynthia and the girls came up, and Ben joined us after he dropped off his wife at the airport.  We missed having LeeAnna with us but happy she was able to visit with her family before her parents left on their mission.  We had a great day all together, like a mini-New Year's Eve party.  Lots of junk food, games, a fun movie afternoon, then a trip to the neighborhood park until dark.  Luke had a blast with his Aunt Cynthia, and is still singing a song about "Put a moon and my pocket" and shakes his booty.  That "cousin's mom" is one fun lady.

Friday we said good-bye to my mom and the rest of us all meet up at the BYU/Tulsa Armed Forces Football Bowl game.  Thanks to Tracy and Ben for getting my family tickets to get into the game for free.  The seats were amazing and the game was so much fun!  So much fun that it deserves it's own blog post :-)

 

After the amazing ending to the game, we said our good-byes to everyone and the kids and I hiked the mile back to our car. Luke rode in style on my shoulders, and everyone else did great. We drove straight back to Houston, stopping only once at a scary, nearly abandoned gas station because our fuel light was on. It was an adventure, but we were quickly back on our way, making home a little after 7.

We quickly cleaned out the car and Michael and I changed into Sunday best and were headed out the door at 7:30 for the New Year's Eve youth church dance (on New Year's Eve's Eve). It was a great dance that Michael had really been looking forward to attending, and I got to chaperone as a Young Women's leader. It was a fun dance for the youth and a long but FUN day for the mom too!