We had an AMAZING holiday and vacation. It was jam packed with family, fun, relaxation, books, walks, good weather, amazing people and love. I hope it was the same for ALL of you!
Right before the holidays, Billy passed his learner permit and so now we have TWO behind the wheel drivers in the house. Kay used her leverage (age) to drive us to Brigids for Christmas day festivities including cousins, games and prime rib. It was so fun to just hang and relax (once we survived Kay driving 75 minutes on the highway!)
Our at home Christmas we literally full of good cheer. The kids loved all their presents (for once) and Tom got super creative with his gifts. Each kid got a folder with copies of all their letters to Santa and the Tooth Fairy along with their baby teeth. They were a bit grossed out while at the same time intrigued and a bit obsessed. He also made us matching Die Hard shirts that said "Now I have a machine gun - Ho Ho Ho". Gotta love the Christmas spirit
We were able to escape to warmer weather for a week thanks to Kendra and Molly who fearlessly agreed to watch Nikki and Maui. Mid way through our trip we got a text that said "We love Nikki. Maui is a shit". yep. that about sums it up.
This year was Tracy's parents 55 the anniversary and we decided to go BIG in Dominican Republic at a 7 bedroom castle for the family vacation. It really was. It came with 7 staff, our own pool, hot tub, pool table, movie room, etc etc etc.
Jimmy literally never left the house the whole week and the rest of us would hike down the hill each day to explore the village and get supplies (snacks and drinks). We did venture out once on an excursion to jump off waterfalls. We climbed straight up for 30 mins and then jumped and "rode" the waterfalls back down to a point where we only had to walk down for another 10 minutes. My legs were shaking with a mix of adrenaline and exhausting. It was a steep climb and the jumps were huge! Jimmy never would have made it.
The kids made everything a competition (of course) and they played pool, spike ball, charades, cards and we had a scavenger hunt.
The staff was amazingly kind and fed us breakfast and got our dinner ready so that all we had to do was heat and serve.
We even had a guard (Santiago) who sat out front of our door all nigh, guard dog (Pa-loo-ah) who was very sweet and everyone wanted to bath and take home and a handyman (Carlos) who drained the hot tub each day and then started fresh.
I finished 7 books and it was beyond relaxing. The most fun is seeing how well all the cousins get along. Pure heaven.
Some photo highlights!
Hanging out, watching the light show at the resort 
The hot tub was 25 feet above the pool and the kids 1st comment was "can we jump?" NO!!!
Georgia's 17th birthday was a hit 
The road up up up 
A view of Puerto Plata 
Silly boys 
The girls and grandparents 
Us!!
Kay at a meet right before the holidays 
He passed!
Tracy's work Christmas Eve service 
Stocking and silly hats 
He's such an Elf
Getting freaked out by the teeth 
The best gift from the Fellows 
Tom's homemade gifts, hat and shirt 
Annual Brigid family photo 
Too tired from vacation, started snoring in the airport on the way home. Dont blame him - we got up at 4am and got home at 11:30pm. Long day. 
The whole group, love them all to death. 
