Baby's first Christmas

Our year ended with a major road trip of the entire midwest. We took two weeks and drove 2000 miles through Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas to visit friends and family for the holidays. Mady handled all of the travelling beautifully. She took all of her naps in the car and wasn't too fussy when she was awake. We also managed to avoid all of the storms on days that we were driving, but we kept a very close watch on the Weather Channel to make sure of that. We did hit some bad road conditions as we entered Kansas, but that was for a pretty short stretch.

The first stop of our trip was to Lafayette, Indiana, where we visited with Matt and Sarah (and Shadow and Rubles) for a couple of days. It was nice to see our friends again. We discovered that a laser pointer is just a intriguing for a baby as it is for cat. Actually, Shadow has become pretty bored with the little red light, but Mady was determined to catch it.

Our next stop was in Dubuque, Iowa. Our friends Jen and Tim and their daughter Samantha recently moved there and bought a new house. Mady and Sam had fun playing with each other. Actually, they still mostly just ignored each other but it is still fun for us to get them together. Sam had her first birthday on 12/29. Sam is the nicest, most even tempered baby we've ever met. We think Mady could learn a lot from her. We got a lot of snow in Dubuque, but the roads were pretty clear, so we were still able to make it to Cedar Falls on the 22nd to see my family.

We were in Cedar Falls for two days to visit Allen and Amber and Monica and Wes. My parents were also in town so we were able to have a nice family gathering at Monica and Wes' place. It was nice to visit with all of them again since Mady hadn't seen her aunts and uncles since Steve and Krista's wedding in June. When we visited Allen and Amber's place Mady got to play with four big dogs. By "play" I mean almost get trampled by. They were all actually very gentle with her. There was just a lot of them. And they are big, real big. The weather started to get a little dicey while we were in Iowa, so we thought that we would have to stay in town longer than we had planned, but there was a window of opportunity to drive to Kansas on the morning of the 24th, and we nearly got there before the storm hit.

Christmas and New Year's were spent in Topeka, Kansas with Carrie's parents. Her Grandma and brother Brian were also there and got to meet Mady for the first time. Carrie and Mady got to take a four generation picture with the Grannies. There was lots of snow on the ground so uncle Brian took Mady out on a sled in the front yard. We all went to church as a family on Christmas despite the really nasty roads (in fact, we were the only ones there except for the Pastor and his family). We also celebrated Carrie's birthday and Mady's birthday a bit early. Mady got to dig into her birthday cake, which she really seemed to enjoy.

All in all, it was a really nice trip and we feel very blessed that we were able to spend time with people we care about. After all the traveling, it is also very nice to be home now so we can settle back into our routine.