Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas this year. We had a great Christmas morning followed by a very busy afternoon of traveling. The kids woke up about 7:30 and ran downstairs to see if Santa had been there. By the look of things it almost seemed that he came twice! The kids were truly spoiled this year, but were very thankful for all their gifts. Maddie gt her first "car" and she loved driving around in it. Austin got a new"motorcycle" that hooks into the TV and plays a little video game about learning to read. After opening gifts we had some waffles and then started a mad dash to pack and get out the door to the airport. The last few years we have had a nice peaceful Christmas at home and although we really enjoyed that we decided this would be a good year to visit everyone in St. Louis. Since we will be living in Japan the next three years we knew this would be our last chance to spend a little bit of Christmas with all our family. I don't think we will be traveling from Japan for Christmas, especially since we might be buried in a few feet of snow! There probably won't we any shortage of White Christmases over there!

So, after a short plane ride we arrived in St. Louis and were picked up by Grandpa Fuller. We then went over and had dinner with Grandma Fuller's family. We got to visit with Chad's aunts, uncles, cousins, and great-grandma! It was nice to catch up with all his family, but made us miss him even more! Then we headed over the Grandpa Stillwell's house to spend the night. Whew! That was a whirlwind Christmas. We opened up some gifts that Santa left over here at Pa-Pa's and the kids were very excited about those! Tonight we just got back from the zoo where we walked around and saw the Wild Lights at the Zoo! If was a really warm and beautiful night! The kids really enjoyed getting out and looking at all the lights. We had a great time!

Tomorrow we will be going out to visit with the Prunty side of the family. We will get to see Great-Grandpa Prunty and some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins! I think we might need a vacation after this "vacation". Well, we hope everyone had a great Christmas and we look forward to a great 2009 ahead!