I almost let time slip away from me again...ha! Since it's been a little over two months since I last blogged, I blame the holidays because they just got away from me. We did a fair amount of traveling and just overall business from Thanksgiving to New Years, I didn't have much downtime to write.
We traveled to Chicago to see my grandparents for Thanksgiving to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday - it was a surprised orchestrated by my mother and all but a few grandchildren were able to make it. She was quite surprised to say the least. We were even able to sneak away one evening after the party to downtown Chicago to see the Bean, the lights, and enjoy some Giordano's deep dish pizza! |
| Christmas Tree in Millennial Park |
Shortly after, I went to Nashville with my mother-in-law Susan, sister-in-law Ashley, two of Susan's friends and Deric's grandmother to celebrate Ashley and Grandma's birthdays. Ashley turned 21 and Grandma turned 85. It was a nice trip, short and sweet, which was nice with the holidays looming and all of their responsibilities, but it kicked them off in style that was for sure!! The lights at the Gaylord Opryland Resort were absolutely breathtaking, I could have spent another 2 or 3 hours there just gazing!
Gaylord Opryland Resort
The Country Music Hall of Fame!
Two short weeks later, the holiday festivities began! Whew - what a couple of weeks it was too!
We had some ice on Decemeber 16th, of course the night before we were to leave to Oklahoma for the big Mueggenborg Family Christmas gathering! So the morning of the 17th Deric and I got up early enough to brave the roads, which weren't too bad UNTIL we got to the toll road! With all of the money we put into that road, you would have thought it would have been the best road...but alas it was NOT! But luckily for us, we'd left early on a Saturday morning so traffic was very light, thus even though we were going and going slowly at that, we didn't have to worry too much about trying to stop. Luckily, but the time we got to Emporia, or so the rain must have stopped on Friday and the roads were dry and it was smooth sailing after that!!
We had a wonderful time for our Christmas celebration - we had it back at my Grandpa's house which we haven't done in many years because of the size of our wonderful growing family, but we made it work and it was great! As always the house was full of laughter and great conversation which was the way my grandmother loved it to be!
The following weekend was Christmas weekend...so needless to say work was CRAZY that week before tying up all of our loose ends, but the week ended with a great dinner with my immediate family on the plaza - boy how our clan has grown and we were even missing one! We've done this EVERY year since we moved to Kansas City in 1994. We used to also go ice skating, but as we and our joints have aged, that has been phased out!(My knees among many of my family's knees thank us for that!!)
Christmas Eve was filled with lounging around until it was time for Church at 4:00pm, then of course we just had snacks and good time with family that evening. Nothing too exciting and it involved my sweat pants so how could I be upset??? Sunday morning - Christmas morning - we ate breakfast with the Donnelly's, then traveled to Garnett and saw Deric's Grandma Kite and two of his uncles, went to Grandma & Grandpa Huletts for lunch and our white elephant gift exchange, followed by a visit to see his Uncle Rob & Aunt Carol, then we swung by to see his mom, Ron, his sisters, Nathan & Cooper and then finally for supper we stopped by to see our friends Chris & Jill and their three little elves! We didn't get home until after midnight but it was a wonderful trip to see all of Deric's family.
*Riley is a big fan of her present!!
Because Christmas fell on a Sunday, the holiday was observed on Monday, which was nice to have an extra day to recover from all the fun we'd had! And...it also gave me a chance to make some sort of order out of our house now that the presents were all delivered and the wrapping paper could be put away.
I was able to take off a few extra days before New Years which has kind of become Deric & I's tradition because while he was working for the railroad he always seemed to be able to take vacation right before New Years vs Christmas. We spent Friday at Union Station in KC seeing the Pompeii exhibit which was amazing! especially after having seen the real thing, it was amazing to see some of the artifacts they have recovered and what they've been able to learn about the way of life in a town that was quite advanced for its time period.
*Pompeii Exhibit at Union Station
* Our Day Date at Union Station
New Years Eve we went out to eat and then spent a little time at Dave & Busters (this is always nostalgic because it's where Deric and I went on our first date!). We've just been saving our tickets for sometime, because neither of us see the point in taking home junk, so we will just enjoy the time we spend there until we decide there is something we want :) Finally we grabbed some Cold Stone (another tradition) and headed home to scratch of our big lottery tickets (again a tradition we've done the last 3 New Years and have yet to win more than $15 LOL) Deric made it to midnight, and woke me up about 5 min before so we could "ring" in the New Year...with Carson Daily unfortunately because DirectTV apparently was on the outs with Ryan Seacrest and we didn't have ABC that night....
*The Christmas Tree at the Legends on New Year's Eve
None the less, we awoke in 2017 and rounded everything up to go back to Garnett for the Kite Christmas celebration. We spent the majority of the day with Deric's family - it was so nice to have everyone in one place - and then that evening we went over to Chris & Jill's again to spend some extra quality time, since with busy lives and the distance it's becoming harder and harder to get together so we try very hard to make the most of our visits to one town or the other!
Here's to a blessed and happy New Year. We have so much to be thankful for. We are looking forward to what 2017 has in store for us, which is already shaping up to be some big things in the Hulett house. And in the words of Ellen, my motto for the year is going to be, "be kind to one another." I feel like so often people get wrapped up in the negativity in the world, and forget that the best way to make a difference is in your own little spot in the world by being kind. Something as simple as holding the door for someone might make a huge impact on their day...you didn't have to spend a time, it didn't disrupt your schedule, but yet someone smiled because of it (it might have even been you!). Bless you all, thanks for reading some of my thoughts from my little corner of the world, and as always our door is always open so call, stop by, or just say hi- we love hearing from and seeing our family and friends! Cheers to 2017!!
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