Christmas vacation in Olympia

The kids and I made our annual pilgrimage down to Olympia a couple days after Christmas. They were heading to Nani and Poppa's house for their Christmas vacation - 7 days worth!! They were SO excited. That meant 7 days without mom or dad, 7 days on the farm with Nani and Poppa all to themselves, and most importantly, 7 days of CEDE-girl! Maddie could not WAIT to see her dog. She loves that dog so much. She can't wait to bring her back home someday...Maddie and Taylor are, of course, always thrilled that they get to stay at Nani and Poppa's house. They got to play outside, take hour-long bathes every night, stay up late, get up late... what a great Christmas vacation!

While we were there, we got to see my sister, Kathy Lynne, Eric and my nephew, Nicolas. It was SO great getting to visit. We don't get to see them very often. It was a wonderful surprise.
Every Christmas, my group of old friends (former interns) from CTE gets together for dinner. Here was our group this year! It's always a crapshoot who can make it.

Katie, Jeremy, Shannon, Tyra, Scott, me, Kimo. Sean was there, but he left before the picture. We missed Kelly, Matt, Bree, and Bethany. Hopefully next year! This was the first year we all got to see Scott in a long time... it was great catching up with him.

As you can see, Shannon and Tyra are about to pop! They are due a few weeks apart from each other! Shannon is expecting a girl and Tyra a boy... we can't wait to meet them!

My next reunion of the trip was getting together with my girlfriends from childhood. We get together a couple of times a year... this was our first time in a while.

Courtney, Shannon, me, Christine, and Nicole.

We had dinner at Anthony's Hearthfire Grill... it was so delicious! It is always so much fun to get together and see where our conversations will lead us... :-) We had a lot of fun reminiscing, talking marriage, kids, life in the mid-30's... we still feel young! Don't we look it?!