Christmas | 2015

It is hard to believe Christmas has come and gone already - it always goes so fast.  There is always so much anticipation for the big day, well even just for Christmas Eve at our house.  Though, I wasn't feeling the Christmas spirit much this year.  I am not sure what exactly it was, but something was missing - maybe the rather warm weather, or being at school and not at home during the time of getting ready.

We always spend Christmas Eve at home.  Mom makes ham and kulma for supper.  After supper is all cleaned up, we open gifts from each other.
Christmas morning, us kids open our Santa gifts in our stockings as we wake up - it is not as early now that I'm older.  Then mid-morning, we leave to go to Grandma and Grandpa's, where we gather with all our relatives - Christmas dinner, kids play, gifts are opened, the ladies do a gift exchange, and the men do a gift exchange.

Sarah made sure that our puppy Zoey had lots of her own presents to open.  Zoey was actually a really good present opener - she would carry her gifts around and was able to open them by herself.  It was so cute!!

I didn't take any pictures Christmas Day, but thanks to my mom's cousin Chris, I was able to get some.  Chris always does a great job getting pictures of everyone.  Here are just some of the pictures.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and has a happy new year!

thanksgiving 2015

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!   I sure did.  I had the whole week of Thanksgiving off from school, which I spent mostly just hanging out at home.  This year, my family spent Thanksgiving at my Great Aunt Margaret and Uncle Al's home.  We went up the evening before and spent the night and my grandparent's.  Thanksgiving morning, a group of us (Team Lee Grandchildren) did a Pie Run.  It was a bit chilly of a morning, though there was a beautiful snowfall that lasted most of the day, but it was a great way to start the day.  After the 5k, most of us headed over to my grandparents for brunch, and then relaxed in the hot tub and sauna.  In the mid-afternoon we headed over for Thanksgiving dinner, which was served in the early evening.  It was a great time being thankful for all, relaxing, and spending time with relatives.

^^Tilli did a fantastic job in the kids' 1 mile run.  Thomas, Jakob, Peter, and Reede all ran the 5k, while Mom, Julie, and I walked it together.^^

^^Turkey drawings.^^

^^Margaret provided most of our Thanksgiving dinner.  It was all so delicious!^^

^^Drumstick lover.^^

^^I love this picture of me and my mom!^^

a weekend together

This last weekend was wonderful!  My mom and sister came to visit.  They arrived early Saturday morning and we quickly unloaded a few things from the van.  I love having home cooked food and some treats, so I had asked my mom to bring me some.  I got those things in the fridge and unloaded some of my mom and sister's overnight bags.

We headed to Des Moines, to the Jordan Creek Town Center.  It is a pretty quick drive to a mall and lots of great shopping.  We started off spending some time in T.J. Maxx, finding some fun things to purchase.  What go us out of the store was that we were hungry!

^^At Fuddruckers for burgers and fries - where we got to top our own burgers.^^

^^Us having fun trying on some fuzzy jackets in Hollister.^^

After lunch we went to the mall.  I think this is one of the best malls.  It isn't too big, but they have a variety of stores.  Some of the my favorites (or at least to look around in) are:  Gap, J. Crew, Pottery Barn, William-Sonoma.  And, they are even getting an Anthropology! 

We took a little shopping break to get an afternoon treat.  There is The Cheesecake Factory in the mall that everyone raves about.  None of us have ever been to one, so we decided to go there.  I am not a big cheesecake fan (I had only had it once), so I wasn't sure if I would like it.  I was thinking there might be something else there I could get.  But, there were a ton of different flavors of cheesecake, so I decided to try it.  We got the our treat to go, so that we wouldn't have to sit in the restaurant (and tip anyone), and went to eat it out in the food court.  I got the chocolate mousse cheesecake and it was actually pretty good!

^^First bite.^^

After shopping in the mall, we ran into Trader Joe's quickly.  We shopped all afternoon and still didn't get to all the places we wanted to!  We wanted to get back to Ames to see a movie.

We got to the movie just in time.  We went to Woodlawn.  Truthfully, it was kind of boring... but, there was popcorn.

After the movie, we just headed back to my dorm and went to bed.  It was fun having a little sleepover right in my dorm room (my roommate was gone for the weekend).

The next morning, we headed out to do a little more shopping.  This time we just stayed in Ames.

At Iowa State, there is an adorable horse barn.  The one thing that my sister really wanted to see while visiting were the horse.  By the time we were done shopping, it was lunch time and getting kind of late for my mom and sister to head home.  We needed to get some lunch, which I really wanted to go to my favorite place, The Cafe.  We ended up getting some deli sandwiches to go from The Cafe, to go and have a little picnic lunch out at the horse bar.  It was a beautiful autumn day.  While my mom and I sat and ate our lunch, Sarah was able to visit the horses.  Perfect!

^^When we were picking up our sandwiches, my mom and sister found some raw sugar cubes sitting out for coffee.  They decided to take some to bring to the horses.^^

^^My mom's favorite deli sandwich is the ham + asparagus.  This is one of my favorites too. ^^

Thanks Mom, and Sarah, for the wonderful weekend!  It was great seeing you and spending time together.