'Twas the Season

DISCLAIMER: This post has been months in the works, so be prepared for many pictures, and as little information as I can get away with.

This may come as news to many of you, but I have a tendency to ramble on about things people other than me don't really care about. I'm going to try and do my best not to do that, but this will be a long post regardless.

Last semester I deemed my Physiology class as prime time to write blog posts, (not so much because it was boring, more simply because it was one of the few classes I got wifi). Lucky for you, I get wifi in all my courses this semester, and even luckier for you, my D&C class is pretty lame, so I easily get distracted.

Either way, our first holiday season married was awesome. We had so much fun, but it was pretty long and exhausting as well. So much so that we haven't completely recuped yet.

Let's start WAY back in November. Thanksgiving was in Portland and Christmas/New Year's was in Illinois. When we got to Portland we drove basically straight to the first Annual Hall Family Basketball tournament. The young'ns vs. the old'ns. The young'ns won (not that I played, otherwise it might have turned out differently).

Look how tired they look, sad.

We spent Thanksgiving day between both my mom and dad's families. We had Nelson dinner at my aunt Jannie's house around 1, and then another full on dinner at my mom's parents' home at 4:30, delicious! Very reminiscent of last year's busy day of giving thanks. The third generation is now starting to have babies, so even though my aunts and uncles are finished having little ones, now all the cousins are, so there are always babies everywhere, and I don't think it will stop.

Haha.

Awwww.

So since America and I were to be in Illinois for Christmastime, and my brosky Miles also was gone for the holidays this year, we thought we'd do a Nelson family Christmas early, the weekend after Thanksgiving, since it was the last time we were all together. We did the same type of thing last year, since America and I spent last year in Illinois for Christmas as well (Portland's turn is this year, wahoo!). It was a lot of fun.

Amber was the designated gift-hander-outer.

After Portland we had only a few weeks left of school (felt like longer) until we flew to Illinois. We got back on Monday, which happened to be America's birthday:

We went out to eat, at Tucanos, and saw a movie. Good times.

Since it was just after Thanksgiving, it seemed appropriate for us to Christmas-ify our home. We went out and got a tree.

And then decorated it:

We also put up stockings, and decorated the house:

And did other Christmasy things, like buy Christmas music on iTunes, play it nonstop, and have delicious things like hot apple cider:

Decorated sugar cookies, eggnog, etc... (The sugar cookies were disgusting, but that was my fault...)

We also did some other festive things like when we had our friends Teej and Jules over for au natural gingerbread house making, it was a late night:

So it was almost time to head out to Illinois. We decided we'd have our own little family Christmas together the Sunday before flying out. We exchanged gifts:

And made a delicious Christmas dinner:

Illinois was a blast, as always. We actually don't have as many pictures as we should have, but if you want to know how it was, this picture (undoctored, mind you!) pretty much sums up the two weeks our entire family was at Ma 'n Pa's in Tuscola:

Can't tell what's going on in the picture? Neither could we at any given time of day. Papa Ruggieri lasted about fifteen minutes after the kids arrived:

In all honesty it was a whirlwind. We hung out with lots and lots of family, went to Indianapolis for a few days over New Year's, and spent time with each other. We had a lot of fun, and got to spend really good quality time with family, family that we don't get to see that often. So that was really good. I mean how can you resist having fun when you spend all your time with this:

Giovanni, he's so cute. And I'll mention that he happens to love me lots, he and Stephania both do, more than they love Aunt America, yessssssssss. Though I guess my nieces and nephew like America lots, Amber loves her more than she loves me, so we're pretty even.

Christmas day was fun to spend with the kiddos:

All in all the whole holiday season was a lot of fun but was really really...

...exhausting. And not just for the kids:


We got back two days after school started, and haven't quite caught up yet. America was really sick over our 6 month anniversary, so I, the loving husband, gave her the gift of holding her hair out of her face while she yacked for our anniversary. Psyche, she got flowers, and candy, which she won't eat until she's feeling better.

All in all our holidays were jam packed full of stuff, but worth it to see friends and family as much as we did. Especially now that this summer we will be gone the entire time in El Salvador working, we want to see them as much as we can, which isn't a whole lot.