Christmas morning with the Nichols

Every Christmas morning the Nichols arrive for breakfast on their way over to Seattle. Andy and I really enjoy this time with family and always look forward to it every year. This year was the first time I noticed how grown up Mickie and Adam are as there was not the usual "can we open presents" that we used to get. =) We had a wonderful time with them and are very thankful they take the time on their way to spend with us.

Wow it just won't stop

Well everyone knows how tall Andy is and now you can see how high the snow in the backyard is. Here he is outside with his new toy...we decided this was just way to much snow for our little snowblower so we moved up and he loves it. He is working on the backyard so that Brinkley can actually run a little and it should give her some better areas for her bathroom.

Brinkley enjoying the snow

Well we getting the beginning of what is supposed to be another 8-12 inches of snow. Tonight Andy was out clearing snow and Brinkley loves to help. Here are some fun photos of her playing in our back yard. (To give you an idea how much snow we have Andy is standing on top or our deck which is a couple of feet off the ground.)

Snow here

We are getting dumped on. Before we went on our trip we got about 2 feet of snow in 2 days and since than it has not stopped. In the back of these photos you can see Andy's black truck or what is left of the truck. We are both on vacation right now and you can see what we have been spending our time doing.

Early Christmas

This past weekend was spent in an early Christmas trip to Seattle. Andy and I drove over on Friday on roads like the ones below. Every once in awhile they cleared enough to have one clear lane. As you can see even though the roads were not the best the weather was clear and made for beautiful photos.

Our first stop was to see Andy's grandparents (Martin and June Peterson). We had a great time catching up and really appreciated the lunch and her delicious Christmas tree cinnamon roll. We also were fortunate as Andy's mom and Mickie had come over this weekend.

We than headed over to see my brother's (Lucas) home. After that we ended that day at my other brother's (Jason) home in Bremerton. We wanted to make it over on Friday so that Andy could go to work with Jason who is an officer with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They had a fun day with all of the snow.

We were very fortunate that all of my family was able to make it over for Christmas. Here is an immediate family photo of all of us. You can see my amazing sister in law that is due in February, so next years family photo will include one more.

Here are the roads we went back on.

We sure had a wonderful time with everyone. Thank you to all our family, we love you all so very much.

I am going to get in trouble for this =)

I was so excited for Andy about this...and he thought it was okay =). So here I am posting it and he is just going to shake his head..(love you). Andy was awarded this plaque and $250.00 (shared among those he cited) for a paper he wrote through work. It was published and for that he got the money and the very nice plaque. Congrats hon.