We always take a picture of the year with our Christmas tree.  This year we took two, one at my parents and one at home.  It's fun to see how everyone changes from year to year....

We can back from Wisconsin on Wednesday, December 26th and opened our family gifts.

Samantha had did a bit of shopping at school this year as the 8th graders were doing a Christmas Bazaar and she bought a few things for each family member.  It was so cute to see how happy she was to hand out gifts that she had bought to everyone.

The kids didn't get to play a lot with their gifts that night but were able to play with them the next morning (after mom got them together!).

Soon after Grandpa left we started to get ready for our trip to Wisconsin for Christmas.  It happened that a snowstorm came through the night before we were to leave and closed schools.  We knew that the roads were going to be bit iffy but we decided to try it anyways.

We left Thursday, December 20th and traveled on very icy roads all the way up to Des Moines where they got worse and we learned that I-35 was shut down a bit north of Des Moines.  I convinced Travis to go ahead and stop while there was motel rooms and rooms.

We got settled into our room saw that there was a pool.  Travis decided to make lemonade out of lemons and go get swim suits.  I was sure we wouldn't find any but we did!  We were excited to go swimming but when we got into the pool it was freezing!  Needless to say we only stayed in a few minutes.

We got up the next morning and learned that the interstate was back open.  We saw many cars in the ditch but we took it slow and careful.  The roads were icy until the Minnesota border.

When we got to my parents it was a fabulous time.  The kids loved spending time with their cousins just playing or sledding (which they did a lot of)!

On Sunday my mom and I went and got some fresh cheese to bring back to our neighbors and then that  night we opened gifts so that the kids would have several days to play with them.

Monday Blake got a touch of the flu and didn't feel good so he took it easy.  He took a short nap Christmas day while everyone was at the house but then felt well again.

As we were leaving Wednesday morning Samantha cried for the first 1/2 hour.  I felt so bad that she cried but so happy that she had such a wonderful time with her cousins and grandparents that she didn't want to leave.

I'm so thankful for my family and the wonderful memories.

The kids loved the huge icicles off of Papa's shed.

All dressed up for Sabbath. 

Typical craziness!

Matching jammies.

There was iPad time...

and air hockey...

and Wii.

The floor was always covered with boots, mittens, hats, shoes and coats.

I opened a lot of toys.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Jenney took these three night sledding in 6 degrees!  They loved it!

Christmas aftermath. 

Exactly what he asked for!

She was SO excited to get an outfit that matches her McKenna.  I think it was her favorite gift all Christmas.

More opening toys.

The semi-annual Britain family picture.

These kids did a bit of baking. 

Grandpa came and visited us before Christmas.  We had a great, quiet weekend.

Sunday we had made reservations to visit Union Station and the Polar Express train.  I was so thankful we had made reservations because the line was terribly long!

Before looking at the train we went around Union Station and looked at all of their Christmas decorations and visited a couple of the free exhibits.

The train was quite ornate inside and each car was decorated with a different theme.  The kids loved it! After the train we went back inside and took the skywalk to Crown Center where we ate lunch, looked at the gingerbread display and checked out the displays outside.

It was a fabulous day with Grandpa and later and celebrated Christmas with him.