The middle of December found us heading to Iowa for Christmas. Our first gathering was the Showalter family at Dave and Cathy's for a delicious brunch, exchange of gifts and lots of time to visit with Don's brothers, their families, and his mom.
Christmas day we invited my mom, dad, sister Judy and Jim to our home for dinner and a lazy afternoon of ballgames and sequence. Later in the evening Judy and Jim stayed on and we enjoyed playing Farkle together. (Note: Judy and I wanted to play Dutch Blitz but the men would not cooperate).
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| Christmas Day with mom and dad. |
Our immediate family gathered during the New Year's weekend on the alternate year switch off. Brent and family arrived on Thursday afternoon from Kansas. Melissa and family joined the fun Friday morning.
The first order of business was to see what was in their stockings. Several years ago we switched up things on the stockings - instead of presents they pull out a certificate to indicate what our activity will be for the day. We love how this has formed so many beautiful memories for us and for the boys.
This year our activities were:
Friday night at Wasserbahn Hotel complete with swimming at the water park,
Saturday afternoon we all went bowling,
Sunday afternoon we went to Carver Hawkeye Arena and saw the Hawkeyes beat Michigan in OT!
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| The boys with their stockings. |
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| Time for opening gifts |
Ramada Inn Wasserbahn Hotel - swimming, pizza, staying overnight
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| Water basketball |
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| Pizza at the pool area |
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| Watching football games in our room |
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| Games in our room |
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| Boys in front of the two big water slides |
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| Cam at the smaller pool |
Saturday we headed back to Coralville for a big dinner and then bowling.
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| A table full of love! |
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| The boys did better than Nana! |
New Year's Eve started with Bingo for the boys complete with prizes.
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| Fun new activity for the boys. |
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| Owen with one of the prizes. Dollar General had a wealth of fun prizes. |
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| Next on the agenda: We taught the boys how to play Pit! |
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| Adult time - Dutch Blitz! |
Sunday we attended the Iowa v Michigan game. Cam and April stayed back for a nap. It was a great game. The boys were on the jumbotron with their smiles, participated on the floor at halftime doing Simon Saez, and made it on tv (Big Ten) with Herky. Successful afternoon.
And once again, just like that, it's time for everyone to go home. What a wonderful holiday time together!
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