Christmas Trip - Part 1 - Vancouver

Before we headed out on our big Christmas vacation we had a mini-Christmas at our house. The kids mostly got luggage and few other things that wouldn't fit very well on the airplane rides. Here are a few pics of the kids opening their gifts.

Also before we left, the girls had their first ever piano recital. They both did really well (Kindly was so nervous) and it was fun to hear them and the other students play Christmas songs.

About a week before Christmas, we pulled the girls out of school early and headed to Vancouver, WA to spend a week with Travis family. We had an awesome time. The only downside was that everyone came down with the flu (except for me . . . I had a flu shot). So amongst the fevers, coughing and aches & pains we still did a lot and had a blast seeing everyone. Travis brother, Phillip and his family visited as well as his sister, Valerie and her husband. It had been 1 1/2 years since we had seen most of them so it was so nice to spend so much time together. We still dragged all the sickies around and had so much fun. Here we are making gingerbread houses (a Cronin family tradition).

We also went to the movie Frozen, which we LOVED! We now own most of the music. It was so good! Below are some photos of a dairy we went to called Alpenrose. They deck it all out for Christmas and have a bunch of fun events there including Santa (he was a 3 hour wait so we didn't see him) and Storybook Lane (see pictures below).

Storybook Lane consisted of all kinds of cute little houses and things for the kids to play in. They all went together and told a "story."

Can you spy Wisdom?

This was so funny! The guy at the concessions stand saw Travis' ASU hat and said that brownies were 1/2 off to Sun Devils fans. So Kindly used some of her money, put on Travis' discount hat and bought a brownie.

We played some games together . . . a little twister!

Here is Wisdom pouting because he kept falling and couldn't keep his hands and feet in all the right spots. Poor kid! But so cute!

This was Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve jammies. The kids were so hyper, this was about the best shot I could get.

Cookies, milk and gifts for Santa

Christmas Morning!

Kindly's gift for her dad!

New Boots!

The Harry Potter fan got a snitch!

Kindly was so sure that she wanted roller skates for Christmas. In fact, after nearly all of the Christmas shopping was done and we were only a week and half away from Santa's big night, she announced that she was SURE that Santa was bringing her roller skates. Thank goodness he got the message!
Watching her learn to roller skate was hilarious. After multiple falls, Passion decided to try to help her out!