Christmas, Part Deux

On Saturday, Nancy and I went to Brandl and Danielle's house for the Groom half of our Christmas. Brooke and Tyler are getting so big. Despite the fact that they live in the same metropolitan area as we do, the hour and a half drive makes it hard to see them very often. So every time we do, it seems like they have grown up so much. Tyler is coming around and actually will let us hold him and play with him now. Brooke is little miss independent, and still doesn't know quite what to think of all the crazy people visiting her.

The Groom Christmas is a little different than the Wiltshire Christmas. It is much less chaotic, much more organized, and there is a much greater per capita beer consumption. We took turns opening presents, and everyone actually got to see what everyone else got. That would last about 30 seconds in the Wiltshire house. Danielle cooked up some awesome ribs and shrimp, and the twins racked up a pretty good haul of presents. Brooke and Tyler are not obsessed with any one thing (like Logan and Star Wars) so it is harder to buy for them. The one thing we know for sure is that their favorite toy is whichever one the other is playing with at the time. We scored a pretty decent haul ourselves, and again left with a car load of presents.

All in all it was a fun time. Here are a few pictures:




Nancy and I have finally finished setting up our game room. We have all this room upstairs, but nothing to really do with all that space...so we decided to make it into a real game room. Well, we had at least talked about it. I kinda made it happen when I went to Academy for some jeans and came back with a huge pool/air hockey/ping pong table and a foosball table. I can't say Nancy was really ecstatic when I showed her what I had bought. And she was even less ecstatic when she had to help me haul it upstairs. But she warmed up to the idea eventually, and now she likes it more than I do. It all started when we went furniture shopping before we moved in, and we bought a craps/ blackjack/ roulette table to go along with our house full of furniture. Then we got a dartboard after we moved in. Now with these two huge tables, we have pretty much filled up the entire upstairs. It's like a freakin' carnival/casino up there. Now we just need some nieces and nephews to come play with us every once in a while. Nancy's mom and dad helped us break it in by whipping our butts in ping pong. We also played a little air hockey and foosball. The big table is actually kind of cool. It has a pool table on one side. You release four little supports and spin it around 180 degrees and there's an air hockey table on the other side, with a ping pong table that sits on top of it. Here are a few pictures of the game room:

Blackjack

Foosball

Craps

Roulette

Pool

Air Hockey

Ping Pong

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We had a great time spending time with everyone. We are truly very lucky to have two such great families. Have a Happy New Year!