Christmas 2011

We just got back from Christmas in Hondo, TX.  It was great to get away from Oklahoma for a while and spend time with family.  Saturday the guys made deer sausage.  I would have gotten a picture of this but it was too cold and dreary for me to go outside for too long.  Maybe I'll take a picture of our freezer.  We took back 4 full Ziploc bags of sausage.  We even had to borrow another suitcase to take them and our Christmas gifts back.  Thank you Southwest for "bags fly free".

Saturday night we went to Christmas eve service at our grandparents church.  It is a tradition to take pictures in front of the fireplace, so here are a few of my brother, sister-in-law, parents, and grandparents.

Christmas morning, more family came over to open gifts.  My beautiful cousin, Stephanie:

More from Christmas morning:

My grandparent's place has tons of pecan trees, but if you wanted to take any home, you had to crack 'em and shell 'em.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time cracking pecans.  I came home with three quart Ziploc bags full of them, not to mention the bags my mom did when they were here at Thanksgiving.  I think I will be set for all the breads and muffins I want to make.

Monday we drove out to the ranch where my parents will build their house.  It was exciting to see the ideas and plans actually start to come to fruition.  It should be built by next year so we can have Thanksgiving there. 

And because baby cows are so cute:

Kyle even got put to work already digging fence post holes.  He better get ready...I think he'll be doing a lot more of that when we go visit.

We enjoyed our last Christmas as a family of two but I'm looking forward to the next one when we have our baby girl to share all the fun.