While Andrew was taking finals and working, Eleanor and I went down to New Orleans to visit my mom and little brother(December 8-18). It was so good to be home and my mom treated us like royalty! The only downside to our trip was the rainy weather. Instead of telling you what we did, it's probably more fitting to tell you what we ate!! Drago's, Ted's Frostop, Magazine Street PoBoys, Camellia Grill, Palace Cafe, Canes....fried oysters, crawfish pasta, roast beef poboys, shrimp poboys, chocolate freezies, palace pie, shrimp tchefuncte, bananas foster, creme brulee, crab claws. Mmmm, makes me hungry just thinking about it :) And sadly, I have no pictures of any of these. (But, I do have a few extra pounds to show for it)
We met Andrew in Wilmington, NC to spend Christmas with his family (December 18-27).
Our first night in Wilmington, Eleanor trying to figure everyone out...
With Grandma Kohler (Andrew's grandma)...
Santa's workshop at the mall...
Riding the carousel (I don't think she quite got the Mary Poppins correlation)...
Andrew's parents have a time share the week of Christmas in the Outer Banks so we drove up there on Sunday afternoon. It's about a five hour drive and Eleanor was a trooper. We just plugged in some Mary Poppins, and she was good to go!
On our first day there we got a tree and decorated for Christmas...
Stocking were hung by the window with care (scotch tape)...
Luckily there is a Sonic there so we were able to get our fix!
I let her open a present the first day we were at the beach so she'd have something to play with...
Breakfast with the whole gang - Andrew's grandparents, Andrew's sister Jessica and her husband Terence, Andrew's dad (grandpa Doug), Andrew, Me, Eleanor, Andrew's mom (nana)...
Eleanor discovered someone's can of Nesquik powder in one of the kitchen cabinets and got into it before anyone noticed...
Here she is reenacting it...
We had our Christmas Eve lunch on the beach...
It was pretty chilly, so we opted to eat inside.
Eleanor loved Christmas morning and watching everyone open their presents, and opening all of her presents, too! Her favorite was waving around all her new clothes that Nana and Grandma Kohler gave her.
We flew back to Ohio on Sunday, December 27th. My mom, my little brother and my 3 siblings at BYU (who flew into New Orleans the day I left, and I actually got to see them in the Atlanta airport where we all had layovers!) drove up to Cincinnati to spend New Year's with my sister that lives there. So (siblings) Freddie, Laura, Amy, Jacob, (nephew and neices) Ethan, Grace, and Sophie, drove up to see us and stay with us for one night.
Here they are loading up for their trip to see us...
They made it!!
It was one big sleepover! My mom wanted them back after one night because she didn't want them driving in the snow. Well when they left I got really sad! So as soon as Andrew came home from work we headed down to Cincinnati and spent New Years (December 30-Jan 2) with the rest of my family (except Emily who's out in Cali, we missed you!!!).
We rang in the new year by playing a game of Phase 10...
Also, Laura has an awesome camera so she did some photo shoots of all the kids. (I wish we had gotten a shot with all of us)
Janey Boo...
Sophie-licious...
Grace Face...
Ethan aka nikky noodle...
El-adorable...
We had an awesome December and are so glad we were able to spend so much time with our families!