christmas adventures in TX

Adventures... a great word to describe our trip to TX! We had a good time, but certainly some exhausting moments as well. Though, I guess that's to be expected whenever traveling with young children. I will be honest, it was hard waking up at 3:30am to catch our 6:15am flight... and returning at 1am on Christmas Day was just as difficult. Hopefully next time, we won't have to travel at such inopportune times.

Anyway. This picture below pretty much sums up what the kids were thinking at 4:15am when we had to wake them up to put them straight in the car:

Airplane ride #1. Camden was happy to look out the window the whole time, and Anderson kept himself busy watching videos on David's iPhone. Thank goodness for technology!

We had about an hour layover in Atlanta. We sat in a little corner area where the boys could run around and stretch their legs. Anderson made a friend over by this window and they were having little conversations. It was too cute!!

We arrived in Dallas at 10am (11am Raleigh time). I bet some of you were still in your pajamas at that time! :) We had been already up for 8 hours and I was already exhausted. However, a stop at the one and only Whataburger was just what I needed to pick me up! (They have these all over TX and we grew up eating it... it's soooo good!)

Of course, we had to get a milkshake, and Camden enjoyed some of it as well.

That evening we went to the local fire station to check out a little open house they were putting on. It had all kinds of Christmasy stuff and of course fire trucks to tour, so the boys loved it.

Love these sweet boys! Notice that we were outside and they weren't wearing jackets. It was SEVENTY degrees that first day we got there. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for it to get chilly again... but we sure did enjoy that one day of gorgeous weather.

We saw Santa while we were there, and of course Anderson refused to sit in his lap, so I didn't make him. After we walked away, Camden said, "Santa didn't look very old". Ha! He's catching on.

Ice cream at Nana and Pops' house. There are always good treats waiting for us when we get there.

David and Pops having some intense conversation.

Anderson decided he needed to have some of Daddy's ice cream too. It was Blue Bell after all... the best kind in the world!

Nana and Pops with the boys. This was the best picture I could get.

And if you know David and I, you know we had to make a stop at the best store EVER! It was wonderful as always!

Ok, so David's parents live in a really cool area. Right down the street from them is a little square of shops and restaurants (similar to North Hills). They had it totally decked out for Christmas. They had little signs everywhere that told you to tune your radio to a certain station, and when you did, the blinking lights coordinated with the music. It was so cool! I had never seen anything like it. I included a video at the bottom that is just a little snippet of the experience.

There were a couple of days where I was pretty lazy with my camera (also when I started to feel really yucky) so I didn't get any pics of present opening, the Christmas Eve service at their church, or any pictures of us as a family (I am so bad at that!).

We headed home Christmas Day. It was extra hard because not only was it late in the evening that we had to travel, but we also had to deal with delays and possible cancellations due to all the snow... not to mention I woke up that morning with a very high fever and felt like I'd been run over by a truck. Now I know that it was the beginning of my strep throat. No fun!

Sorry if I sound like I am complaining too much. I'm just keepin' it real. :)

Here David is again keeping the boys occupied while waiting for our plane to arrive.

Anderson didn't sleep a wink from 3:30pm (when he woke up from his nap that afternoon) until 12:45am. I don't know how he managed to keep it together for the most part. Poor Camden fell asleep about 10 minutes before we landed, and he was hard to wake up. He walked like a zombie through the airport after that.

I hope you all had a great Christmas as well. Can you believe 2011 is just around the corner?!