Christmas Morning

We woke up Christmas morning to a wonderful surpise. Santa had come. He left Kayla a TV for her room, a digital frame and an game chair for the play room. He left Collin a new bike, a Castle and as game chair.

This is Tim with his blanket that Kayla made for him. He said it was his favorite present.
Me passing out presents to the kids. As you can see they had a great time.

Christmas Eve at Aunt Judy's

Christmas Eve at my Aunt Judy's. We had a great get together. I think we had about 40 people show up this year. It was really nice to see everyone. My dad came this year (which is a big surprise) and my Aunt Patty and Uncle Frankie. I enjoyed visiting with them.


Me and My Dad

Dad and Crystal

Uncle Gerald, Billy and Tim

Chris and Zach

Frankie, Patty, Dad and Crystal

5 of 7 brothers and sisters - Patty, Dad, Judy, Gerald and Kevin

Me, Jennifer and Heather

Some of the grandkids -

Jennifer, Jason, Me, Chris, Zach, Tiffany, Cory, Samantha and Heather

Grandkids and Great Grandkids opening gifts from the exchange

Our Newist additiona to the Family Ethan Emery Wheeler - He was tired by the end of the night

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Today is Christmas Eve and it has been a great day. I started the morning by heading to Alvin to pick up Cake Balls for our family get together tonight, then back home and took the kids to see Santa. Then I shocked them by saying yes that we could go to build a bear. Now I am cooking a Lasagna and then we will be heading to my Aunts at 4:30. Tomorrow we have two get togethers with Tim's family and then another on the 26th. We have been blessed this year and we are very thankful. This is Kayla and Collin with Santa.

Polar Express

The gang got together and caravaned to Palestine to ride the Polar Express. The Texas State Railroad has a run from Palestine to Rusk and at Christmas time they reenact the Polar Express. Everyone wore there PJs as you can see below in the pictures. We had a great time, but the boys enjoyed it the most. They were so excited when that steam engine rolled in. It was load and they had pure joy written all over their face.

Before we left Madyson, Kayla, Collin, Austin and Kayden
The gang waiting for the train to roll in

silly face

Jennifer, Me, Heather, Judy, Tiffany, Sherry, Kathy, Kristy and Misty

Family get together

We had a family get together at our house on December 20th to celebrate Christmas with my Mom. We had Mom, Holly, Darcy and her kids, Roy and Haley and Avery over. My favorite thing about Christmas is spending time with family and this was a wonderful evening. We usually take a group picture, but somehow we missed it this year. So we will have to make up for it next year.

This is Ava playing ( I could never get her to look at me when I was trying to take a picture)

Avery and Julia before opening gifts

Tim and Roy (I guess they missed each other)

Me and Haley

Me, Mom and Holly

Congrats Darcy

Darcy Graduated with her Masters. As you can tell from her cords she received tons of awards. I couldn't begin to tell you what they all were, but I think she had the most of all of the other graduates, no joking.

Mom, Darcy and me

School Dance

The kids had their first all school Christmas dance this year. It was really cute. The kids practiced dancing in PE for a week in advance.

This is Kayla and her friend Chandler

The girls Dancing

Collin helping out with the bowling section

Kayla and her friends

Collin hula hooping

OJT Christmas Party

We had our second annual OJT Christmas get together. Thanks to Denis and Alexis for having the party at their house this year. The kids drew names and got gifts for one another and we did a White Elephant. Needless to say we had some interesting gifts this year. We had tons of good laughs.

Alyssa, Morgan, Collin, Kaylee, and Kayla (Reagan is there, but got cut out of the pic)


Collin, Avery, and Alyssa

During the gift opening
Me & Tim

Decorating the Tree

We got a late start to decorating our tree this year. We usually do our tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but this year we left on our trip for Monte Carlo on that Friday. So we didn't start decorating until December 11th. We got the tree down and the kids did an excellent job of helping decorate.

Sunday and Monday in Monte Carlo

Sunday was kinda a slow day here in Monte Carlo. It was arrival day for most of the other people on the trip with us. I woke up at 2 am in the morning. I told myself I needed to at least lay in bed until 4 am. Then next thing I knew Tim and Collin were awake. We were all up and about by 6 am. We went to breakfast on the top floor of our hotel. The view was great, but clouds were rolling in. We started the breakfast being able to see in the mountain top and by the time we were done the clouds were covering everything. Then it started raining. We finished up breakfast and headed down to the welcoming event. We had some drinks and got hand massages and a neck massage. We walked throught the city, but everything was closed. So we spent most of the rest of the day in the hotel trying to stay awake so that we could get ourselves on schedule here.

Monday started out in a rush. We had a guided tour of the city and getting all four of us down to breakfast by 8:30 was a little challenging. We were still off schedule, but doing a little better. We took a bus through Monaco and over to the old town were the Prince's palace is. The tour was very informative. Monaco is only one square mile. There are about 30 thousand people that live in that one square mile and only about 3% of them work. The live here because they do not have to pay any taxes. The apartment buildings are 35 stories tall and they have parking garages underground that are four or five stories below ground. There is parking in the mountains too. The tour guide was very informative. We ended the day with a welcoming dinner. It was really nice. They had prize drawings, but we didn't win. They also had dancers and other entertainment. It was a fun evening.

1st day in Monte Carlo

We started out on Friday evening and got to our destination of Monte Carlo on Saturday mid day. Our flight was long and rough a few times. We landed safely in Germany, then rushed to our connecting flight to Nice, France. We had an hour between and our first flight was running late. Once we landed in Nice we took a nice bus ride over to our hotel. Our hotel is nice and our room has an ocean view. Our balcony is litterally hanging over the ocean. Once we got here I was totally wiped out. I don't sleep well on planes at all. So we ordered dinner and then I showered and was out. Tim and the kids went for a walk throughout the hotel. They walked through the city.

Halloween 2009

Obiwon Kanobi and a Monarch Butterfly were the costumes of choice this year. The mask on Collin's costume was so realistic. It was hard to tell that it wasn't a real face. Kayla of course looked adorable with her fake orange eyelashes and all.

The neighbor hood kids.

After trick or treating we headed out to a costume party. I was Dorothy and Tim was the Scarecrow.

Kayla, Summer and Bella

Lesa and Emily - Hint her dad was dressed as an angel.

Mike and Julie L.

Me, Jill H, Alexis, Cora and Julie L.

Tommy, Brian, Denise, Mike and Tim

We had a great time. Thanks to the Starks for inviting us again!

Air Show

We went to the 25th Annual Wings over Houston Air Show. It was every ones first time to go except Tim. We decided Saturday morning that it was such a great day we should go and enjoy the show. The pilots did some amazing flying. They did a reenactment of Pearl Harbour that was awesome.