Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From the day we arrived in Cheyenne, we were surprised by all the presents we received from Courtney's work, Grandma and Grandpa Kuipers, Great Grandma Kuipers and Great Grandma Holtgeerts. 

 So, as kids do, as soon as they open their eyes they were ready to tear open the presents and figure out what their Christmas goodies were. 

Puppy Dog Pals!!

This little girl has been obsessed with Olaf

My little monkey, got a monkey!!

I got spoiled... Instant pot and new pots from my mother!

It was a very fun day of being together as a family and enjoying all of our new Christmas goodies!!

Merry Christmas Eve!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Christmas Eve, means making Christmas cookies!

 I think the kids were more excited then ever to make cookies this year, since last year, the kids were sick that I ended up just whipping up some candy kiss cookies for Santa. 

 Now that the kids are getting older they want to help out with every bit of the baking process. Usually, the baking process is a little easier, but we don't have any of our stuff, so we had to make do with what we could find in the cupboards. The kids had fun either way!

This year, we didn't make as many cookies as we usually do. Most of the time, I have to throw out most of them, so we kept the cookie count to a small number. They had fun decorating the cookies either way and knew right away which ones were going to be for Santas plate.

McKaila took this picture and thought it was so funny that the tree topper made me look like I had horns

Very typical in our household

We were invited to have Christmas Eve dinner at Courtney's bosses house, which is the house directly behind the house we are staying in currently. Their daughter is 7 so the girls bonded right away with her and Logan had a blast hanging out with the boys. 

When we got home the kids put on their pjs from Dilly the Elf and put out their cookies and chex mix. Then we sat down as a family and read "The night before Christmas" 

I love making all these holiday memories with the kids every year. It truly makes my heart so happy!

Sickness

Unfortunately, the first full day in Cheyenne, sickness haunted our family. 

We were so excited to go explore Cheyenne a little bit, have some lunch downtown, and go check out the base and our new house. (we currently have an address for our house on base, but can't move into it until the 12th of January since someone else is currently living in it)

We were able to walk around downtown a little bit despite the snow and wind, and ate some great food downtown and then once we got to base it all hit. McKenna started acting strange and before we knew it, she was throwing up in the car. We automatically assumed it must have been the food we had just eaten. So, since we were on base, Courtney ran into the commissary to get some crackers and sprite to help her belly feel better. 

In the mist of all that, Logan had fallen asleep and I kept continuing to ask McKaila if she was feeling ok, which she was thankfully. And then, all of a sudden in the middle of his sleep, Logan started throwing up. All over himself and his carseat. Thankfully, as I was running out of the car to get to Logan, I spotted Courtney walking out of the store and yelled at him to hurry. 

What a scene it was watching us, undressing Logan in the back of the van and cleaning up throw up from McKenna and Logan. It literally was back and forth between the two of them from then on. 

It wasn't until later that night, that McKaila started feeling it. So, now we had all three kids throwing up, one after the other. And at this point, Logan and McKenna didn't have much in their bellies besides water, I just felt so helpless at the moment. 

So, I think all in all, it was 3 nights straight that Courtney slept on the couch with the girls and I in the bed with Logan, with very little sleep while we continued to clean up after sick kids.

We pretty much have come to the conclusion that it wasn't food poisoning. We think it may have been a mixture of all the crappy food we had been eating on the road and the high evaluation that we weren't used to. 

With all the craziness of sickness going on at the house, we did get a great surprise. Courtney's new boss and her husband, brought over a Christmas tree. The tree was standing pretty in City Hall. The city of commerce has a program that donates the trees to families and they thought of us. So very thoughtful of them, because all I wanted was to make it feel like Christmas in the house and with the sickness, I didn't even know if we were going to be able to find ourselves a Christmas tree. 

Grapevine, TX to Cheyenne, WY

No more surprises, but we do have plans to make some pit stops along the way. I think we are all just ready to get to Cheyenne at this point.

As we were heading out of Grapevine, Courtney knew he had to stop in Dallas to see the AT&T stadium. But first, we stopped at Gas Monkey Garage. Courtney loves that show and was in complete awe as we drove up to it. 

Courtney bought Logan plush monster truck that he had fallen in love with and also bought himself some Gas Monkey gear. 

Next stop, AT&T stadium. Wow... just WOW!! 

This stadium is ridiculous, it's pretty crazy that this is a football stadium. I mean... we have gone by many stadiums and they don't even come close to what the AT&T stadium is. 

Texas Rangers Baseball Stadium across the street from the Cowboys stadium

We actually went from Grapevine, TX to Amarillo, TX. There really isn't anything between Amarillo and Cheyenne so we stopped in Amarillo for the night. 

Thankfully, that night I picked up the brochure in the motel room and found that we were only a few miles from Cadillac Ranch, so the next morning, before heading to Cheyenne, we knew we wanted to make a quick stop there. 

It was so cool to see. These Cadillac's have been buried since 1974 and have been painted over and over again by people with paint cans.  

Courtney found the one can that still had some paint in it

All the paint that has melted throughout the years

Hello Mountains!! (Colorado)

Love this pic even though it's blurry... but then again... life was a blur at this point of the traveling

McKenna selfie

Loves his monster truck

It was one long drive to get to our new home town, but thankfully with all the travel, we arrived safely to every location, and that's all we could ask for! 

Now, to wait a month before we can get our keys to our new house on base. I will be forever grateful to the family that offered their home up to us so we didn't have to stay in a motel for the next month. It all ended up working out so well for us because he had just had people move out of the house, so he cleaned it up and he is taking care of everything for us (cable, electricity, internet, etc.)