Making the most of winter days

Since coming home we have had great visits from my fam.  My little brother Jared and his family came up to visit just after we arrived.  It had been more than a year since I had spent any time with them.  We saw them for a few hours last summer but that has been it since August of 2009.  It was so great to just hang out with them again.  His wife Cassie is so fantastic and fun and his little boy Emmett is so sweet and hilarious. 

Jared and Cassie and movers and shakers and thus the weekend was packed.  We played in the snow where Jard and Scott and my dad made us a personal sledding hil and tried it out multiple times.  We had a big snowball fight, made snowmen, and snow forts, it was just fun.  Emmett wasn't sure how he felt about the snow.  But he looked super cute in his blue snowsuit!

We also played the game Ticket to Ride multiple times!  This is a good game for our family.  It allows for controlled competition.  Something our family needs.  There are a few games that have been banned from family functions, such as Settlers of Catan : (  it doesn't really help family bonding.  It does however provide good stories later. 

We went to the movie Megamind too.  If you haven't seen it, I reccomend it!  We all got ready to go and nobody could find my dad.  Thinking he must have gone somewhere without telling anyone and felling abit annoyed about it, we left him.  About 20 minutes into the movie my dad shows up.  We later found out he had fallen asleep in the crawl space under their closet (they had a bed down there as fort for Kayt and Ella.  It is very quiet).  When he woke up he though it was too quiet.  As he climbed out, the ladder broke and he hit his arm really hard as he fell back into the hole.  The poor guy yelled for help in vain.  He managed to get himself out of the space and  to the movie though.  That night his arm was litterally black and blue from shoulder to elbow.  We all felt bad but couldn't stop laughing at the whole situation.

Cassie, Sarah, Gabby and I had the dance off of the century.  I think we played just dance for 3 hours Sunday night.  It was super fun.  I think we all came away with a few new moves.  Even the guys and my mom got in the action a bit.

Thanks Jared and Cass for making the trip up.  We look forward to many more.