The Van Dusen Family: The Rush of the Holiday Season

Well, this holiday season seemed even busier than the last couple of years. I guess the difference was that I wasn't busy with finals and school. Instead I busied myself with holiday parties and Christmas shopping. I think I prefer to be busy with the holiday events than I do final projects and tests.

With a winter storm coming into town, Matt and I decided to leave 2 days earlier than planned. I was able to get two days off work and we headed to California around 11:30 Monday night. We drove all through the night. It was nice, because Abigail slept most of the time. We arrived in California around noon or 1 pm on Tuesday. I'm not 100% sure, because the time change really confused me that first couple of days.

While we were in California we had the opportunity to spend lots of time with Matt's family. All of Matt's family was together for Christmas, which is pretty rare these days. On Christmas Eve we had the opportunity to go visit my old boss, Adam, from Roof Doctors. It was so nice to catch up with him. He taught me a lot and has done a lot for me in my professional life, even if I'm not in the roofing business. In the evening on Christmas Eve we went to Cousin Keith's house for dinner. We had the opportunity to see all my second cousins and my mom's first cousins. We didn't get to see Evan as he was on his honeymoon, and we did not get to see Uncle Garner as he was not well enough to leave the house. Luckily, we saw him in church on Sunday!!

For some reason, Abigail woke up at 6am Christmas morning and would not go back to sleep. So, instead of fighting it, we decided to get up and open presents. Abigail only had a couple of presents to open as her big present was a Baby Einstein Activity Jumper. She got to open and start playing in that for a week before we left to California. We decided to let her have it early as it fills our entire trunk. In the afternoon people started arriving for the family Christmas get together. All the siblings went outside and took a picture. Then we ate dinner. After dinner the kids started opening presents. This year all the aunts and uncles bought presents for all the grandkids instead of getting presents for each other. This was a huge success. Abigail got more presents than I think I have ever seen one child get. All her aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins spoiled her.

Below are a few pictures we took at Christmas, but mostly we sat back and enjoyed helping Abigail open presents. Most of the pictures below were taken by Pascal, Nate and Jody. Thanks everyone for making this a great Christmas!!