Christmas Eve at Lake Minnetonka

We started out the day with a big surprise for Ashly. On our way to Christmas with Chadd's family at the lake house in Minnetonka, we swung by the Verizon store. She finally got her long awaited cell phone! She was very patient the last couple years as she has seen most, if not all, her friends get a phone. I told her good things come to those who wait, and she got a pretty nice phone out of the deal! Then it was off for some good food and good company. We had Christmas dinner, then opened presents. Sometimes the kids ice skate, but not this year. However, some of them tried some snowshoeing. Ashly played some Christmas music on her flute to entertain everyone. Oh...and I can't forget, Chadd was excited about his knife he got (nice picture!).

I have to say, the next day, Christmas Day, I thought would be nothing special since I had to work. But, it ended up being one of the best Christmas Days ever! When I got home from work, Chadd and Ashly had prepared a feast! We had turkey and all the trimmings and lots of other food, including a pumpkin pie! Then we sat down and opened a few presents, just the three of us. I have a really thoughtful husband and kid(s). Ashly picked out a big wooden advent calender that we can put candy in and reuse every year. I had been talking about wanting one of those...and she put together a neat Christmas ornament with pictures of our family on it, and saved a spot for the baby. And the baby (with Chadd's help of course!) wrote me a sweet letter to thank me for putting up with all the aches and pains and kicks, he got me a gift certificate for a prenatal massage. Wow! Sweet, huh? Then we had one more surprise in store for Ashly. We went and saw the movie "Marley and Me" at the movie theater. What a great day!

I work again today. Then we are off to Langdon tomorrow morning for Christmas with the Symons' Family.