Christmas in Colorado

Merry Christmas, friends! I'm writing this from my grandparents' house in Arvada, Colorado. It's been a wonderful Christmas celebration, and I thought about just writing about it myself. However, I happen to have a cousin who's a published author, so I recruited her to help me with this blog post. We had a lot of fun. Thanks, Alison!

What has this Christmas been like?
-We all got together to open presents and have fun.
-We ate really delicious food, and nothing got locked in the oven.
-Many people asked me questions about Florida.
-My mom and my cousin Alison accidentally coordinated their presents.
-We went to Christmas Eve service.
-During the candlelight singing of Silent Night, my aunt Valerie's hair caught on fire.
-It snowed!
-We played a lot of cards and board games (and I won at Life).
-We put together some towel packs of essentials for the homeless in Des Moines.
-We re-discovered the old miniature foosball table in my grandparent's basement.
-We also discovered an unopened box containing Windows 98.
-There was an exciting announcement, and much crying, screaming, and hugging commenced.

What will be different the next time we're all together?
-There will be more people in college: my cousins Haley, Shannon, Peyton, and Alison.
-My aunt Valerie and uncle Chris will be dealing with empty nest syndrome.
-My grandparents' dog Charlie will still be begging for food, and will probably be fatter.
-Grandma will be expert at using her iPad.
-The Broncos will have won the Super Bowl.
-My cousin Adrian will be even more ripped.
-My cousin Haley will have won seven swimming gold medals in the Olympics.
-My mom and my cousin Alison will coordinate their Christmas gifts on purpose.
-The Bruins will have won the Stanley Cup.
-My uncle Dave and aunt Keli will have traveled to all the continents.
-My cousin Alison and I will have won one foosball game (out of hundreds of attempts).
-My cousin Alison will have published another book.
-My aunt Keli will have created an award-winning world-renowned screenplay.
-My cousin Christian will excelling be in middle school.
-My aunt Laura will be enjoying not having empty nest syndrome yet.
-Grandpa will have read every book ever published.
-I will have a call to a church... somewhere.
-My brother Zach and sister-in-law Lindsey will be a lot more exhausted, because...
-our family will have grown by one!

That's right, the exciting announcement was that Zach and Lindsey are expecting a baby this July. The next time we're together, guess who will be getting all the attention?

Once I return home this Saturday, I will add another blog post just of pictures from Christmas!