A post of people I love....

In 2002, I spent 10 weeks in Santa Cruz, CA for the summer.  It was challenging and incredible and my roommates were the best.  We got together recently for the first time since summer project -- plus most of our kiddies!

Pizza my heart.

Just typical dinner time attire when daddy is out of town...

McBride's + Reid's // seven children

Everyone looking...

crying tears of laughter while looking at this picture. 

that time I kicked my baby in the head while trying to beat the camera self-timer...

Being with these people is good. And it's like family.  And it's fun and full and always chaos -- in the best way.  

Elise's first plane ride

Our sweet nephew Cole -- or "baby Cole" as the boys call him.

Isn't he adorable!?!!?

In Chicago, at the aquarium. 

Group picture

Silly group picture

Chicago date night! Thanks, Kate!

Just the man of my dreams, the love of my life...I'm a lucky girl!

I was the photographer

And I loved every second...

More than a garden....

Yesterday, we spent four hours on the farm. We weren't planting trees, we were planting a garden. Our hopes were to get one started last year, but we ran out of time. This year we were on top of things and even threw in a little community with the garden.

(The area where vegetables and fruit will soon grow...aka...the garden)

Instead of having a huge garden for four people, we have a huge garden for eight people. We have a small co-op going on here, except you don't have to pay a months salary and you get to build a community with other people.

Our deal is this: pitch in what you can for the seeds, work a couple of hours a week tending the garden, come and get what you want when it's ready.

Not only did we plant seeds, we planted the beginnings of a really great community. We laughed together and made jokes. We took turns doing jobs that were hard or tedious. We took pictures. We ate twizzlers. And at the end of the night, we grilled out and had dinner together. Now that's what I call a bonding experience!

We planted 7 1/2 rows of potatoes, a few rows of onions, some cucumbers, squash, carrots, corn, lettuce, beets and leeks. Time flys with seven people! We'll wait two weeks, meet back at the farm and start planting the next round of seeds. I think I'm going to enjoy gardening this year!

Here are Andre, Patrick, Carol, Al and Phil hard at work. We tag-teamed the potato planting!

Dirty Hands make for much more fun while planting. My hands and Allyson's.
Al and I working and talking and laughing... (Andre took this pic)
Patrick and I planting onions together....(Andre took this pic)

Al and I planting onions...(Andre took this pic)Patrick and Phil working the seed planting thing that looked very similar to an exercise contraption of sorts. Hum.

Weekend timeline of good times...

Patrick's little sister came up to visit for the weekend. For her high school graduation present, we gave her a "use any time weekend getaway with the siblings" pass. She decided to cash in the pass before she started the spring semester of her freshman year. She goes to school at Tufts, in Boston, so we were a great "pit stop" before she went back to school.

Patrick, Kent and I all drove to the airport to get her and then went back to Morgantown for the night. We ate at Black Bear, went grocery shopping, hung out at Kent's place, watched the Flight of the Conchords TV show and laughed a lot.

Side note:
A Favorite moment: at Black Bear...
Ashley: (eating a burrito) I don't know how I'll be able to fit this monster in my mouth!
Kent: -cough, cough- that's what she said.
Oh. I lost it. There were several "that's what she said's" throughout the weekend and they were so perfect! It seems as though I set myself up for them without even knowing! (end side note)

On Saturday, we made a great breakfast together and hung out in Morgantown for a bit. Before heading to Indiana, we spent some time at Dorsey's Knob. It's a little park/rock that you can climb on and see a lot of Morgantown. It was fun and we got some cute-o pictures!

Kent, Kate, Patrick and Ashley...

Ashley and Kate...

We got here(as in Indiana) on Saturday night and had dinner. We then proceeded to watch more Flight of the Conchords and played "Hot Dice" for about four hours. We had way too much fun! We woke up Sunday morning and went the farm. It was really fun to show Kate around. We decided the best way to see the farm was on the four wheelers. Kent took Kate and Patrick took me and off we went. It was a lot of fun and we were all freezing and bright red by the end!

After the farm tour, we headed back into Indiana for a late lunch before Kent had to leave. It was nice to hang out and spend some quality time together. After Kent left, Patrick, Kate and I watched The Departed (whoa. intense and interesting.) then played Scrabble before bedtime.

Monday was a showing-Kate-around day. We had lunch at one of my favorite little shops, stopped by Patrick's work and hung out at the coffeeshop for a while. We ordered pizza for dinner and then went back to the coffeeshop with Patrick (he had a meeting). When we got home, we talked about random things and tried to learn French and tried on a lot of clothes (except Patrick did not do that).

This morning, Kate and I left Indiana early so we could get some serious shopping time in before her flight took off. We stopped at Robinson and spent most of the time in Forever 21, trying on outfits and such. Then off to the airport and she was gone.

We all had such an awesome time together. What a blessing to love your siblings-in-law and have so much fun together. Patrick, Kent and Kate are a lot alike. Sometimes, it's weird how they think/act/speak the same, but I certainly appreciate their relationship. I'm so thankful to have a sister in Kate and love how we all "click". Did I mention that we had a ton of fun?

Last stop...

We drove to Leesburg, VA to have dinner with Patrick's Uncle John and Aunt Eileen. It was a really nice time and was very good to see them. Carol, Frank and Kent came also (we caravan- ed) and John and Eileen's daughter, Laura, was in from New York.

Eileen put together quite a meal. She used the theme "A Dickens Christmas", as in Charles Dickens (Thanks, Erin!). We had all English things: English cheese and crackers, English side dishes and of course, a goose. We even had homemade eggnog! Everything was phenomenal and we were able to try things we've never heard of before!

We weren't able to stay long, since we had a four hour drive home, but it was nice to spend time with so many people and enjoy Christmas with family.

So we're back home and had a fine time each place we went. Sweet memories were made, wonderful conversations were had and we certainly laughed and smiled and enjoyed each moment. Christmas wouldn't be a special holiday without people you love. I'm glad this was such a special holiday.

The eggnog, homemade of course!

The Christmas tree at the Carlton's

Patrick and I got WVU-opoly. A game I'm sure we'll be playing a lot of... John and Eileen gave us these geese to remember the special dinner she made!
My number 1 (Patrick) and number 2(Kent) favorite guys!

Moving right along...

We drove to Frederick, MD on Monday morning and we were warmly welcomed by our nieces! We really enjoy hanging out with Jason (Patrick's brother) and Cindy (Jason's wife) and their two girls, Cassidy and Jenna. Kent was already there and Carol and Frank came later in the day. We were also able to see The Czarniak's, who stopped by for a visit. That's always a sweet surprise because we don't see them nearly as often as we would like to.

We had a fun day in Frederick. I took the girls on a Starbuck's run, we listened to Patrick and Kent play guitar. We ate a lot of cookies and snacks, we had an incredible dinner. We played games and darts and American Idol Karaoke (which I won!) and Dance Dance Revolution. Did I mention that we love visiting the Thompson's?

We had a big dinner together and stayed up late playing darts. We waited for the girls to go to bed and then SANTA CAME! I've never played Santa before and it was a lot of fun. Cindy let me help her get everything out and fill the stockings.

Jenna woke me up on Christmas morning because I wanted to see what Santa brought (sneaky me!). It was a fun time with the girls, they were so excited! We had some coffee and sticky buns before present opening chaos began! It was so much fun watching the girls open presents and it's always fun to open your own! I felt so blessed to get presents. I know that I don't deserve them and don't really need them, but I'm grateful for our gracious families who put the time and thoughtfulness into giving.

The morning went way too quickly and at noon, we were off to our next stop of the day...

Patrick playing the strawberry guitar...

The Christmas tree surrounded by presents...Cassidy, Aunt Ashley and Jenna playing the new games on the DS (I hope y'all know what that means, because I sure don't).
Cindy, Jenna and Cassidy excited at a present
The boys - Jason, Patrick and Kent

Merry (day after) Christmas!

Here are a few pictures to highlight our Christmas extravaganza. I'll post in detail when I get a chance:

Patrick and his Snowman friend. Did anyone see the Halloween Office when Michael Scott has another head on his shoulder and Dwight is a Sith Lord and they are in Michael's office talking about who to fire? Okay, well...we were acting out that scene right after I took this picture. Good times :) My mom and my sister opening presents...
Cassidy, Jenna and Aunt Ashley on a Exxon/Starbucks run on Christmas Eve...
Kent and Patrick entertaining us with some sweet guitar playing...
Christmas morning...the presents cleared out pretty quickly!
Aunt Eileen and her festive table. She put together an incredible dinner for us!

Me and my favorite person in all of the world...

The reason for Christmas. A child was born to save the world...what an incredible gift from God.

Whew! I've got some fun posts ahead! While it was chaos traveling a lot over the last three days, we had so much fun and really enjoyed seeing so many people to celebrate Christmas!