Christmas in Lousiana

We traveled down to Lafayette this past week to celebrate Christmas at Noni's little house. Jonas and Gill were excited to visit cousins Nathan and Chris in Arkansas on the way down. We made it all the way to Noni's house (and then back home) in a one-day sprint, arriving near midnight both times.

Some highlights of the trip: presents from Noni (truck for Gill, bristle blocks for Jonas, ornaments, robes), Uncle Dex & Aunt Jen (paper constructable space ship, recycling truck for JD, wind-up clock for Gill), and lots of stocking stuffers from Aunt Desi and Uncle Joel. Aunt Desi even finished Gill's stocking! It's a beautiful match to the one she made for Jonas 3 years ago.

Noni also had a special riding tractor ready for the boys. Despite the rain, we went out for several rides on the tractor. Sadly, only one boy can ride at a time, and Gill is still too young to operate it properly, though that didn't stop him from trying to push his brother off it every chance he got. Jonas was a cautious driver, and only came close to running over Gill when he first got on it.

On Christmas night, we journey to Cindy's house in Opelousas where all of the cousins gathered for a traditional game of "Dirty Santa." We came home with red plastic baskets (the kind you get full of fries and a burger) and a grouchy santa. We had hoped to pop fireworks, but it rained the whole time we were there. We saw Cindy's crew: Cindy, John S., Chelsea and John T. (kids André, Adrienne, and Abbygail), Cala and Shay (kids Jude and Sydney), Lauren & new boyfriend Tommy (kids Shianne and Nathan), Bob & Jan's crew: John G., Rocky & Beth (Owen), Ross & Sara. Desi, Dex, Joel and Noni were there as well. It was a full house. Aunt Cindy still had lots of food left to snack on, plus freshly baked rolls from her square black iron skillet. She had "planted" the best gift in the pile for Dirty Santa - my mother's graduation photo framed in a cheesy 50's car frame.

Some bonus gatherings included a trip to the park where Joe joined us, plus a visit to Old Tyme and Borden's with Angela, Erik, and Mark.

Noni, Joel, and Desi cooked an amazing feast, including seafood gumbo, (paleo) chicken and sausage gumbo, smoked beef and spicy turkey, petite pois, creamed spinach, sweet potato casserole, brussel sprout salad, and more. We ate ourselves sick. Here's a photo of the boys making chocolate chip cookies with Noni.