A Tennessee Weekend

What a wonderful weekend! The four of us left Friday at 2 to head to Tennessee to celebrate Christmas with my mom's family in Jefferson City. It was a tough drive; it rained the whole time, the girls didn't sleep well and there was something on I-40 that caused major traffic delays (we eventually bypassed it without seeing what was going on). Thankfully though after 4 hours we made it to Knoxville where we enjoyed a delicious dinner with our friends, Michael and Jenn Douglas. Ryan and Michael have been friends since they were kids, and they talk to one another often; however it had been over two years since we had actually seen them. It was great to catch up with one another. After dinner, we had about 45 minutes to go to my grandmother's house. About half-way there, it started snowing really hard which slowed us down a little more, but we were so excited about the possibility of playing in snow the next day! When we got to Granny's house, we quickly unpacked and got the girls to bed. It took a little while for them to settle down, but they finally did and the adults were not too far behind them.

On Saturday, we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow; thankfully it wasn't on the roads as we had more family coming in to town. We had a relaxing morning and then after Mia's nap, we bundled the girls up and went outside to play. Mia was happy to run right in though the snow came up to about her knee while Lily was content to stay on the covered patio, make snowballs with my dad and give directions from above us. Finally, we convinced her to come down and play...she loved it. We made a very small snowman, Ryan made a snow angel and we had fun making "holes in the snow" as Lily said; she liked seeing her footprints. Finally, Ryan and I were able to have a snow ball fight too which was lots of fun. After a little while, we decided the girls needed to go back in because we really don't have appropriate clothing for snow, and we didn't want them to get sick. We went back in, warmed up, had lunch and then napped.

 It's a little hard to walk in the snow by myself!

 Mommy and Daddy will help me from now on.

After nap time, we all got ready and went to my uncle and aunt's house; Johnny Wayne and Nancy have a beautiful home up on a mountain so the views outside are amazing. We all loved our traditional Christmas dinner. Cherry glazed pork loin is the main dish, and I look forward to it all year. All the sides were fantastic too...spinach casserole, mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, lima beans, brown rice and rolls just to make your mouth water. After Italian cream cake dessert, it was time to open presents. Opening presents is so much fun now that we have five little ones (our two girls and my brother's three kids) who love it. The girls were thrilled with their gifts, and Ryan and I are so excited about the David Copperfield show tickets from Granny. By this point, it was well past bed time, so we packed up and headed back to Granny's where we all went to bed pretty quickly.

This morning the girls slept until about 8:45 which was a nice treat. We had a fun morning playing with their new toys, and then about 10:30 headed back to JW and Nancy's for brunch...again delicious! After brunch, Granny surprised the kids with cute little gingerbread man cookies. Lily was really excited about this. She thought it was really cute, and then she realized it was delicious. This was definitely a sweet treat! We enjoyed our time eating together and catching up, and then, unfortunately, it was time for us to go. We packed up our stuff and hit the road. This time it was a very easy trip back as both girls slept over 2 hours of the 3.5 hour trip and then just chilled looking out the window the rest of the way.

I am so thankful to have such wonderful family even though we don't get to see one another nearly enough. It was a treat to get to spend time with them this weekend, and I sure hope it isn't too long before we get to visit again!