Another Christmas has come and gone. Here’s a quick recap of this year’s celebrations.
Wendy and I flew to Denver on Dec 22nd. Wendy’s sister bought a house there this past year so her family decided to meet there for Christmas. We spent Wednesday through Friday there with plans to fly home on Christmas morning. The visit was mainly spent hanging out with family. We did a lot of laying around watching movies, shopping, and chatting with one another. As a Christmas gift to everyone, Wendy and I took the family to Buca Di Beppos on Thursday night. Most of them had never been there, so it was fun to share the experience with them. We opened gifts on Friday afternoon and shared a meal together.
The schedule Christmas morning was to fly back to Des Moines, arriving in time for Christmas with the Vander Well clan around 1 p.m. Mechanical problems forced numerous delays and, long story short, we didn’t get to the VWs until 5 p.m. By that time, we missed Taylor and Clayton (who were already off to the next of 3,567,923 celebrations). Everyone kind of had been hanging around to see us, so after a few hugs and a quick opening of our gifts (they had already exchanged earlier in the day) everyone left. We headed home for Pella.
Sunday (Dec 26th) was a great day. I played bass for both services that morning and Wendy came to the 11:00 service with Madison. Around mid-afternoon Taylor and Clayton arrived and we exchanged gifts. We then sat down to a wonderful dinner Wendy had prepared as a belated birthday dinner for Madison (who had the flu on her birthday). Salmon steaks, baked potatoes, homemade rolls, and Grandma VW’s marble cake for dessert. It was awesome. As usual with dinners at our house, we sat for a couple of hours and talked before the kids had to depart.
