Christmas Vacation

Wow, I cannot believe it's March and I just changed my blog background from Christmas theme to Spring! I hadn't even realized how much time had passed since I last blogged until a friend emailed me wondering if we were still here and if all was ok! Yikes! So the answer is yes, we are still here and doing great. We've just been super busy since Christmas and I haven't sat down and made the time to blog. It seems like I blinked and now it's March 13th! In fact, it's my "little" brother's 30th birthday today - Happy Birthday Tim! Wow, time sure does fly.

So, without writing a novel, here is the first of a few posts to get us caught up :


For Christmas of 2010, we decided to forego spending $1300+ on plane tickets and drive to California instead. This meant 2 things: We got to take our sweet dog Angel with us and we'd be driving back to CA for the first time since moving to CO!

This was the face we saw every time we looked in the back seat

The kids in the back seat, loving the road trip

Little Mister watching movies in the back seat during the road trip

Angel REALLY wanted some of those fries.  Yay for road trip junk food!

Greg hardly slept at all during the whole 20 hour drive.  Here he fell asleep 10 minutes before we got to our  hotel.  10 minute power nap anyone?

We had a wonderful trip. The road trip was great! Greg did sooo good in the car. We borrowed a dvd player from a friend which helped him pass the time but he really did amazing. He was a happy boy the whole trip and we couldn't have asked for a better behaved kiddo! We also really enjoyed seeing the gorgeous countryside between here and California and loved getting to spend some quality family time together in the car. We spent the night in Richfield, Utah to break up the drive and once we got to California, it was SO much more convenient for us to have our own car! The only draw back to driving was that it made our time in California a little shorter since we spent 4 days driving. But we made the most of our time with family, doing our best to spend quality time with everyone!

A really special part of our trip was getting to meet our new niece (Greg's first cousin on the Stucky side).  Miss Kayla Rochelle Stucky was born on November 22, 2010 and we were so very excited to meet her!  She is absolutely adorable and perfect and we could not be happier for Tim and Heather! Kayla is just the sweetest, happiest little girl in the world and we are so extremely blessed to have her join our family!

Meeting Kayla for the first time

Here are some more photos of our trip and time with our families:

Fun playing drums with his cousin Jaxson

Cuddles with Daddy

All the Cipolla boys (cousins)

Greg being silly with Great Grandma Kitty and Daddy

Kisses from Papa

Loves from Grandma

 @ Kim & Tom's house for our Progressive Christmas

Bright and early on Christmas morning, we packed up the car again and headed for Kingsburg to see my side of the family.

The Johnson Family - Christmas Day 2010

Tim, Heather & Kayla with Great Grandma & Grandpa Johnson

My Grandma with baby Kayla

Us with "Grandma and Grandpa Lo" (Greg's nickname for my grandparents)

Greg getting to "drive" with Grandpa

Greg riding his new Strider bike that he got for Christmas

 We had such a wonderful trip and had a great time with our families.  Seeing as this post is getting super long and I promised not to write a novel, I think I'll end this post and start another one to continue the update on the last couple months. Even though I'm writing this on March 13th, I'm going to back date it to keep things in chronological order. So goodbye for now... To be continued....