Christmas with the Hollowells

After opening presents and having our annual family breakfast at Memom & Rannan's, we hit the road to Helena around noon. We already had the car packed... all we had to do was stop by the house and pick up Reggie. We didn't sleep to great on Christmas Eve, so I napped about 1/2 of the way there and my superstar hubby drove us there. 

We arrived in Helena and quickly got ready for Christmas dinner! All of Tripp's family was there and we had a beautiful dinner. They always bring out the fine china and Mary Ann (Tripp's mom, aka "Marnee") has the house fully decked in Christmas decor. It is amazing. We drank some Egg Nog and opened some presents with those that we wouldn't see again.

We slept in the next morning and opened presents with the smaller group - the Bettis', Tripp's parents and us. Grayson helped us all open the presents.

We were pretty lazy the rest of the time... eating and napping. I snapped some pics of Grayson playing with Marnee's nativity set. Such a cutie.

We woke up on Tuesday, Tripp's Dad's B-day, and were all feeling a bit off. I felt pretty nauseous that morning and then Tripp & his mom started getting sick... with the stomach bug. I ended up missing it somehow... a miracle, thank you Jesus! I felt SO bad for them. Tripp rarely gets sick and it was not easy watching him feel so bad. We layed in bed until around 1pm and we decided we would drive home to NWA since he had to work the next day. Tripp felt pretty miserable for the first 1/2 of the car ride, threw up once... but then felt much better. 


He went to work the next day and I basically took it easy the rest of the week. My office closes the week after Christmas, so I had a total of 7 days off! It was AMAZING. So lucky to work there.


That was basically Christmas 2011! It was a whirl-wind, but loved being with family. Since I've been a little excited about decorating for Christmas this year, I got some great deals on some more decor for next year! :)