Thursday, December 24, 2009
We left Belleville in the morning and made the trek across the state to my parent's house. We enjoyed a relatively quiet day except for the trip to Meijer to get a few groceries. Note: NEVER go to Meijer on Christmas Eve!
This little fellow provided the entertainment for the day by trying to climb up the ice-covered shepherd's hook that held the bird feeder. He provided hours of entertainment!
Friday, December 25, 2009
We had a slow Christmas morning since church was cancelled because of ice. Food was made and prepared for the evening meal. Katie and Kyle came over for dinner and we had cheese, oil, and chocolate fondue for dinner/dessert. It was a great meal and a lot of fun! Afterwards we opened gifts and stockings.
Before and After:
On the left is Brian as he pulled this strange contraption out of the packaging having no clue what it was! On the right is Brian with the new contraption in it's rightful position - it's a hair catcher for when I cut his hair! We used it this past weekend and it works great - no vacuuming required!
This is my Christmas present that I have been unable to use thus far - rollerblades! I'm anxiously waiting until it is warm enough to try them out.
This is probably one of our most used gifts so far - The Settlers of Catan. We have begun to play it almost every night together. We can't wait to play with more than 2 people!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
A slow morning with a few errands to run to drop things off for people in the GR area. In the evening we headed to Holland to pick up Oma for the Branderhorst Christmas party. There was a ton of food and we had a great time! The gift exchange worked out splendidly again and I ended up with The Game of Things and Brian got an iTunes gift card. We also were introduced to Bananagrams which we now own thanks to this introduction!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The ice had melted, so we were able to have church. This was definitely a blessing since Brian and I had not been able to go to church since December 6 due to traveling. In the afternoon, we headed back to Belleville.
Monday, December 28, 2009
We actually spent this whole day in Belleville - the only day the whole break! We actually ended up at Best Buy for a majority of the day trying to get my computer fixed. We did have a nice lunch at Olga's and managed to get all our Christmas decorations down and put away. We wanted to be able to come back to our apartment without having to deal with that all later.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
In the morning, we headed to Midland to see my Grandma Jo and Fred. We hadn't been to visit them in a while and we were definitely overdue for a visit! We got to see the Loons Stadium (a AAA ball team in Midland) and helped Grandma prepare dinner. I spilled almost a whole bag of frozen corn all over the stove, but we managed to make it work. :) My parents arrived later in the afternoon. Aunt Jeri and Uncle Dan came for dinner along with my cousin Darren and his girlfriend Summer and their brand new baby Chase. It was nice to see some family we hadn't seen in a while.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
We left in the morning to head to Niagara Falls by way of Canada. Brian has never been to Niagara Falls, so this was a new experience for him. I had never been there in the winter, so I even got to see something new! The trek through Canada was long and rather boring, but we made it by dinnertime. After checking into our hotel (free thanks to Brian's points!), we walked across the bridge to see the falls lit up on the Canadian side.
Here's both of us standing in the US and Canada at the same time. Unfortunately we couldn't do it together because there was no one to take our picture. :(
Here's both of us by the falls when they were lit up. It was freezing cold and so misty that I had a sheet of ice on me by the time we were finished. We spent a lot of time in the restaurant for dinner warming up!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
In the morning, we walked over to the Niagara Falls State Park which was right across from our hotel. We went to all the different lookouts (as close as we could get) and went on the Gorge tour which brought us to the base of the Bridal Veil Falls.
My boyfriend...I think he might be a bit tall for me!
After spending the morning at the falls, we drove 2 hours into New York to East Palmyra to visit our friends Nick and Kelly. They moved out there in September when Nick took a call from a church there. We had yet to see them and since we were so close, we took the chance to visit them. We arrived late afternoon and were greeted with a rousing game of Deutchlandreise...my least favorite game EVER! I lost as usual and Brian won. We then went to church and got to hear Nick preach and see the church that he is at. After church, we went over to friends' of Nick and Kelly's for a New Year's Eve party. There was lots of good food and the night was complete when I got to see Dick Clark kiss his wife.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Since we had been up until 4 am, we slept in a bit. Nick's parents and little brother had also been there and left shortly after we woke up to drive back to GR. Since we only needed to go as far as Belleville, we took a quick trip to the Erie Canal and out for lunch before heading on our way. The trip across Canada was just as boring as the first time except for the fact that I decided to drive a little way. As soon as I began to drive, we hit a freak snow storm in the middle of Canada and had to go 20 mph on the highway. I decided that I wasn't meant to drive and let Brian take the wheel as soon as I could get off! We got back to Belleville late and got to sleep in our own bed.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
After taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep in our own bed again, we left again in the morning to head back to GR. I had scheduled a hair cut appointment and we had to get there in time for that. I got my hair cut, spent a little time with my parents, and then headed over to Brian's brother's house for a Christmas party. The whole Ponstein family had been together the weekend before Christmas in Florida for Jill's wedding, so we had a low-key Christmas party afterwards. It was nice to see everyone again and get to eat even more food. We weren't able to stay late because we wanted to get back to Belleville so we could attend our own church in the morning. It was nice to be able to have the opportunity to do that.
Overall, we had a great Christmas break! It was wonderful to see much of our family and friends and to see things we had never seen before. It was definitely very busy and we were glad to be home and staying put for a while, but we never regretted being busy while we were doing it. We've been home ever since and have yet to make definite plans to head anywhere again.
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