Peoria
Alex's eye is much better. Unfortunately he does not like the eye drop in his eye every three hours.
We dropped the dogs off at the kennel on Friday and we flew out to St. Louis on Saturday. Alex ended up with half of my suit case and part of Gabe's suit case. So, when we arrived at the airport we had two large suit cases, a medium suit case (that Gabe emptied and packed into the other bags), a car seat, a diaper bag, two carry ons, and a baby. We could barely carry it all. It is a really good thing that Gabe left the medium suit case in the truck.
We flew Frontier Airlines and they were all very nice. The lady at the check in counter said we could check any baby items for free and to keep it in mind for our next trip. It is nice in thought, but I don't think that it is that practical to pack any more stuff around. Going through security was much easier than I had anticipated. The TSA worker was very helpful and came over to help me through security. I sort of think he saw me and thought "oh great, she is really going to slow things down." :)
Alex was great on the airplane. He slept the entire time we were flying. I hope that he is just as great on the trip home.
We stopped at Sam's to pick up some diapers before arriving at his parent's house. The weather here definitely reminds me of winter. There is snow on the ground and ice on the trees. The roads were basically fine though.
Ice and snow
On Sunday, Aaron came to Peoria. Originally we were going to go to Chicago to the German Village, but the weather was too bad to take Alex. Instead, Aaron came to see us. We went to Folepi's Village and saw the Festival of Lights floats. Luckily the village was inside and we were able to see the floats from the comfort of our heated car.
The cacti followed us to Illinois!
Aaron, Gabe, and I came back and we all had dinner. Aaron had to leave since he had a long drive back to Chicago and he had to work on Monday. Laura (Gabe's sister) and Nate (Laura's boyfriend) came over we opened our Christmas presents and watched old family videos. Gabe and I also wrapped all of the presents on Sunday morning. It was like a little Christmas for us too, since most of the packages had been shipped to his parent's house months ago.
On Monday, I watched while Gabe, Duane (Gabe's dad), Troy (Gabe's brother), and Shari (Gabe's sister-in-law) all played Settlers of Catan. The Gabe was put on hold around 5:00 p.m. Gabe, Duane, and I went to a military supply store to buy some MRE's for my brother for Christmas. We had ordered some from a site on the internet, but I was really disappointed in them. They were only the entrees and not the complete meal that I was expecting. It is all fixed now (I still need to wrap them though). We stopped by Laura and Nate's place on the way back and then we headed to Sam's to pick up some chickens for dinner. After dinner, the game playing resumed.
Today has been pretty laid back. Troy, Shari, and Sophie (Troy & Shari's daughter) headed back to their home. I think we are going to watch a movie tonight. The snow is much nicer when you can enjoy it from the comfort of a heated house. Gabe and I also need to pack. We are going to leave tomorrow and head south to Southern Illinois to see my family.
I think that we are crazy for coming here for Christmas. We should have had people come to sunny Arizona instead!
P.S. I will most likely add pictures in early January.