New Year's Eve adventure

We headed over to Spokane on December 31st to spend the weekend with my brother, Mike and sister-in-law, Andrea, and their family. My parents also came and my sister and brother-in-law. We had a great weekend of snow and sledding. This was a picture of the boys on the way over in Ellensburg, WA. First potty stop of the trip. They thought the snow was cool. We haven't had the pleasure of seeing any snow so far this season in Bremerton.





The kids got to make a toast to 2009 with sparkling apple cider before they went off to bed at 9:30 p.m.











Mike and Andrea had a puzzle up in the living room, which Rebecca and Andrea enjoyed working on.











It was fun to all hang out around the table and talk. We did have time for feeding the kids first and then having an adult dinner later on. It was great to be there.










Deep, after dinner discussions.













Tom and Stacy feeling a little tired from the drive over that day.












Sophia always is the life of the party. She had a great time ordering her cousins around. They all deserved it.











Jonah had been running through the house and he stepped on one of Rebecca's knitting needles, so we had a little issue. Jonah thought the needle went through his foot. Once we told him that the needle only left a red mark, the crying stopped and the chaos resumed.









This was the children's dinner. They had a great time and we were so glad we waited to have ours a little later.










Since Grandma, Grandpa, Stacy, and Tom were staying at a hotel, the kids got to take advantage of the pool as well which is always a great way for the kids to let off some steam.

We promise, we only let them stay in for 1-2 minutes because of their young age.

Don't mess with Astrid. She can be one scary girl if you cross her.

On Saturday, we headed up to Silver Mountain in Idaho and rode the gondola's up to the top of the mountain. Dana and Hannah went skiing and the rest of us went inner tubing. We had a blast. The gondola ride was 20 minutes and it was enclosed so it was a great way to start and end the day. So here is the chaos of trying to get everyone dressed at the car. Kids are losing gloves, have the wrong boots on and are getting knocked over by other oblivious kids. It was organized chaos.

Everyone took a hand and we were on our way.

The gondolas fit up to 6 people, I think. It was a fun ride.

The kids couldn't wait to get up the mountain.

Noah wanted me to take a picture of this for him. It was the local "watering hole" at the base of the mountain.

For those of you who forgot, Rebecca stayed back at the house with her foot up all day long lounging about. Actually, she had the whole dinner prepared when we walked in the door later that night with brownies to boot. Thanks honey.

Stacy, Tom, Isabelle, Nolan, and Sophia

Mike, Andrea, Dana, Hannah, and Astrid.

We all had lunch up there before we went out in the snow. At this point, we were all dry and warm.

It was beautiful up there and it was snowing hard all day long. The kids loved it.

Uncle Tom spent a lot of time fixing the kids' gloves, hats, boots, etc.

You would have thought they were lounging at the beach the way the rolled around in the snow.

I thought this was a great picture of Jacob catching snow flakes. The hill for inner tubing was cool because they had four slopes and a "flying carpet" to come back to the top. It was like a moving carpet that you stepped on and rode up the hill. When I was a kid, we had to sit down on our tube and have the rope tow us up the mountain. It always ruined our gloves.

Noah got a little wind burn from being out so long.

I don't think Jonah was mad, I think he was going for the cool snow boarder look.

We had a great day and had to wait in line to go back down the mountain. It was beautiful and not too cold.

Uncle Mike always looks funny in a snow hat.

There was one VIP gondola and we let Andrea, my dad, and Astrid go in front of us before we knew it was the nice one. They were loving it. It had 4 bucket seats and a stereo. They rode in style down the mountain. We were all jealous.

The 1 1/2 hour drive on the way home proved to be too much for Noah. I don't think I have seen him fall asleep in the car since he was two years old.

Jacob played his DS and listened to music. It was a great day. We came home on Sunday and had great driving weather. We were tired, but had a great time with family bringing in the new year. Happy 2010.