So the car was full, even before we put ourselves in it. And after Shannon got home from work, we finished the preperation and headed out. After a short stop to top off the tank and pick up some drinks, we headed towards Cedar Rapids on Christmas Eve Day.

Traffic was bad in spots, but not so bad that it slowed me down too much. There was a SUV that loved to tailgate that followed me for 20 minutes or so.

We stopped by my parents, dropped off our presents for that house, said hi to all the people there and then headed over to the Matta's to drop off our luggage. They weren't home but the door was unlocked and so we took our things right up to the spare bedroom and then headed back towards the Blocklinger's.

We got there and join Shannon's parents were watching a Duke marathon on the TV and we joined them until Shannon's sister's family got there. Sheighleigh was dress in a very cute Christmas, and Sean was very handsome in his outfit.

For me, I was thinking more people were going to come over, cause there were piles of presents, but I was mistaken. Which amazed me.

We had a nice dinner of soups (chili (pretty good) and chicken noodle (very good)). Some rolls and some bread that my younger brother Jed had me take along, along with cheese, pickle wraps, wraps, cinnamon chips with a fruit salsa, along with Lefse covered in cinnamon and sugar and baked.

It was a good meal. Shawn was very excited to get to the opening of the presents. We got to it, and it was quite a diffrent experience for what I was used too. They passed out the Christmas stockings (first one of the weekend) and I got a couple of cookbooks and other things and I was flipping through the cookbooks before I realized that people were kind of waiting for me.

We went on to the presents. Shawn and Sheighleigh got many toys and outfits, I gave Shannon a Lalique Crystal Cat and Shannon got me the wine bottle opener that I wanted (like the one that Chris has). It basically makes the wine bottle super easy to open and hard to mess up. We also got a stained glass claddagh that Shannon's mother made for us (it's huge), so that'll soon be hanging in the large window in the living room. Shannon's parents seemed to like the presents we got them, which is cool :) We also got the majority of our christmas lists bought for use...which was kinda shocking to me...I suppose it's easier to do when you have two kids and their familys rather then 9 kids and their family. But yeah it was tough to get used to. Kim got Shannon a bunch of soaps and things that she made. That was cool too.

We talked for a while afterwards, and the kids started to play and we (Mike, Kim, Shannon and I), ended up playing the TV version of Scene It. Mike led through most of the game, with me trailing behind everyone, until I finally found what I was good at (Jingles, slogans, and music). It came down to the wire, and due to a hard question, and then one that Shannon knew right off, Shannon came in first and I came in second.

Somewhere in there we had pie, and I had a small piece of three pies, all of which were good (rasberry, pumpkin and a chocolate cheesecake, I think).

A little while later I helped make load up the present's in their min-van, and then we loaded up our things and headed back to the Matta's.

Buy the time that we got there, Taylor was down for the night and Nathan and Jenny were painting Taylor's new room (her current room will be the baby's room). It had bright colors and Taylor's favorite thing, Butterflys. It was pretty neat. So we chatted for a while and after they were done painting for the night, moved downstairs and continued chatting. Eventually we headed to bed.

I woke up in the morning to the sounds of Christmas morning at the Matta's. I headed downstairs and took pictures of Taylor opening up presents and playing. She went very slowly and would open something and play with it for quite a while. Jenny's mom showed up with more present's for Taylor. And then Shannon joined us. To our surprise, when they passed out Christmas stockings, we had one too (2nd one of the weekend). It was very nice had some chocolate, candy and a loofah and a couple of other things. It was really nice of Santa to also visit us at the Matta's. Nathan then make a great breakfast of french toast (made of challah from La Mie), and bacon, and sausage, with peach and strawberry reductions as syrup. Quite yummy. We got ready for the day and then looked at the clock and saw that my parents were about to leave for Church, so we stayed around for another hour and then headed over to my parents.

We got there before my family had gotten back from church, so we looked at a few things, took some pictures, I tried to show Shannon the Santa face with the beard made out of wintergreen lifesavers, but I found out later that since mom doesn't really have anyone around that is really interested in doing that anymore. It kinda made me sad. We had the gift exchange of what was left over (my family does most of the present opening on Christmas eve) so we missed out on most of the gifts opened. But we did get to see my parents open our gifts and see Brent and Emily's internal family open their gifts. And then we got our final gift exchange between Shannon and I, where I got her a big bottle of the purfume that she likes (and I do too, yes it is a little self serving) and she got me Kill Bill vol 1 and 2 (which she had remembered from a long time ago that I wanted them). We also got, in Shannon's Stocking another copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so we re-gifted it it to Emily's family, since that's what Santa would've wanted.

We got called for dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravey, fruit salad, lefse (prepare your own...mmm...an excuse to eat sugar and butter), bread made by my brother Jed. Shannon got a bit confused (which at a Kurth dinner is easy to do) since things can get quite confusing, reaching not passing in a uniform manner and the fact that there is 14 or so of us. Dinner was good and it just kinda shows how much I miss mom's cooking. After dinner, I wanted to take a nap, but Shannon wouldn't let me, so eventually we played a game of Settler's of Cataan with My brother in law Brent (the physics one), my sister in law Stephanie and my little brother Isaac. It was a good time. Shannon built little buildings out of the pieces to the game. It was fun. Stephanie eventually won. A little while after that we headed back to the Matta's.

We ended up chatting with the Matta's pretty late into the night, so late that Shannon went to bed before Jenny, Nathan and I were finished.

On Monday, we woke up and got ready for the day, and around 11 we headed out to get some lunch and then headed over to Shannon's grandmother's house over in Marion. It was an interesting experience and there were a lot of neat glassworks/salt n pepper shakers that I would like to look at closer one day (kinda hard to do when kids are running around). We chatted, Kim and Mike's family showed up. Opened more present's. Shannon's Grandma seemed to be pretty happy with the glass manger scene that we got her. We took a bunch of pictures and chatted some more and eventually we headed off.

We then met up with Richard, Wade, Nathan, Jenny, Taylor, and eventually Dan at applebees and just hung out, ate a little and chatted and around 4:30 or so, we headed out to our cars. Shannon then noticed that there was another blue RSX Type S right across the parking lot from mine and so we commented on it, and it turns out it was dan's...but two model years earlier. I just found that funny. So then Shannon and I headed home and then plopped on the couch.

Oh...and to those of you whom I told I'd put pictures up online so you could download 'em all...yeah...that won't so much work since they won't compress at all, so I'll take a CD or three of them back to Cedar Rapids, so you can get them....

Anways good christmas, lotta fun, lotta new traditions, lotta loot, and Maybe the last time we'll see Jenny pregnant (she may give birth this week). Oh yeah...we also gave Jenny a Chocolate baby carridge :-) She had a huge chocolate haul (from us, from nathan and from her mom). 3 Stockings, lots of presents, lots of fun, and lots of family.