Every year we leave the day after Christmas and drive to my parents house! It’s an 11 hour drive and we all hate it but it is always worth it. This year we got a late start – we didn’t leave until 8:30am BUT we made good time. We were the last ones to arrive, right around 6pm. And that’s when the party started!
Friday 12/26 drive, celebrate Christmas with Robertson’s – gifts from parents, gifts to parents. Cousin exchange, Sibling exchange…
Saturday 12/27 Beccas baby shower, buy appliances for parents, play soccer with friends, play more games at the church with family, eat out at Hulas with all of the adults, games
Sunday 12/28 mom gave a great talk at church, I got to see some great friends at church, kids explored in backyard, fried chicken for Sunday dinner, games
Monday 12/29 basketball at the church, yogurts and pizza, park & discs & skates, lasagne, Rob teaching the 2 year olds, lots of coloring, games
Tuesday 12/30 Go see a house that Kevin is wanting to buy, visit the Aunts, play at the church with the Hancocks, tacos for dinner, games
Wednesday 12/31 Breakfast with Angelee and Erica, visit with Becky, Take all of the kids to the jump houses in Gridley, Michael’s yearly slurpee run, new years eve extravaganza!
Thursday 1/1 new years!, watch football, play soccer, Nertz with mikila and amber, sleep, Eat Ham, hall way hockey, Play spoons, lots of games
Friday 1/2 Visit Tonya, take all kids to the School, boys throw discs, clean, pack, cali haircut, NOODLE SOUP, muddy buddy, more games
Saturday 1/3 Drive Home, unpack, crash!
Now when I condense it like that it doesn’t seem too intense but when you consider that there were 30 plus people for each of these activities. There was a game or 3 being played during any “down time”. My parents home is less than 2000 square feet. Noone got to bed before midnight unless they zonked out on the couch – kids included. Babies still woke everyone up between 7 and 8am. It was a crazy week. And Super Fun.
The most played games this year were NERTZ, Coloretto, Love Letters, Robot Maze, Dominion, Settlers, Ticket, and several new games that I heard were fun but I never got to play. We did get sucked in to playing Jame Jat June for Josh and a little catch phrase.
There was a passing of the “Robertson Family Fantasy Football League Belt” to Michael – this years Champion. And there was a Champions round of Super Tecmo Bowl – Kevin handed the Helmet over to Sean this year.
The bathroom line at the parents was insane all week. There are times when you stand at the hall and wait for your turn. There are emergencies where I told Packer to go out back in the bushes. One of the days I watched Kevin wait for over an hour because he kept missing the openings – each time he went back someone else was already in. Anyway, It’s always fun and amazing that we do actually get showers most days.
This year we got one of the bedrooms which is awesome because we have a room for all 8 of our suitcases! and all of our stuff. We filled the room with our stuff and a crib for Millie and it was packed! Then each night a few of the kids would need to sleep in with us on the floor. If they were too grumpy or couldn’t fall asleep or woke up in the middle of the night then they would come find a little spot on the floor. I readily admit that it is not prime sleeping arrangements BUT we have so much fun, there is no way we would dream of sleeping anywhere else! 🙂
The sleeping saga continues because there are several kids that need to sleep out in the family room. The babies get the bedrooms and the rooms just aren’t big enough for everyone but… We also have MANY adults that like to stay up SUPER late and be LOUD and crazy and play lots of games and never go to bed… So we have lots of tired kids and tired adults but again…. in some weird way we choose this scenario.
Now we are home going through family withdrawals… we love being with family.
and that was our week in California!
