Christmas with the Gougers!

After a wonderful visit in Virginia Beach Angela and I dragged our poor dog away from his Lizzie and headed across the Bay to see my family. AJ and Lizzie became quite good friends while we were there, and he was sad to be leaving her. Although, I think he was more upset about getting back in the car! We were very tired and still exhausted from the move,

and we realized that in all the chaos there were several more boxes of presents to wrap! Angela thought that she would be able to wrap them in the car, but that was very unsuccessful, and she only wrapped one present in an hour! So we stopped in the parking lot of an elementary school in Newport News to finish…

the rest of the day was a slow paced family visit where Colin was the center of attention. Baby’s first Christmas is always a big deal! We methodically exchanged gifts until Grandma and Grandpa Gouger came over for dinner, which was great! Angela at first had a hard time catching on to the method, but she figured it out!
AJ loved opening his gifts, and really enjoyed his cigar and duck! He was completely worn down from all of the attention, presents, and traveling, and he fell fast asleep on Grandma’s comfortable lap. He loved Grandma and Grandpa, and we have decided that they need to get a little dog! We had a wonderful Christmas ham, with great wine, and spent the evening enjoying great food with the family.

We watched family videos during the afternoon, and enjoyed seeing how cute Mary was as a little girl, how funny James is playing football by herself, and how awesome it is to see teenage girls in the 80s who are too cool for everything! ☺ After family videos, the girls made bracelets and earrings from the bead kits they received for Chrismas.
All in all, we had a very pleasant Christmas with both of our families, whom we hadn’t seen in quite awhile. It was our first Christmas together, which was very exciting and very eventful! We hoped Rod had pleasant holidays in Baghdad, and that next year, we can all celebrate together!