Christmas Voyage

We're back! We made it, over 1500 miles and 10 days. Whew!

We started off on Dec 28th, driving to St Louis. We spent the night with the St Louis Keels (Rocky, Jane, Hannah and Abby). The girls had a great time dressing up in the costumes. We really liked the laid-back tone of the night.

We left the morning of the 29th. We met up with the Oklahoma Keels (Fritz, Kelly, Jesse and Wiley) en route to Jefferson City where we spent lunch with Oma.

From Christmas

We even got to go to the local HyVee to get her groceries, though she did forget she needed milk. After lunch we stopped in California, MO to see the grave of Katie's grandma. We then drove through KC rush hour to make it to Lawrence. Everyone else was already there. We designated Dec 29th as "Christmas Eve" for the family. We had a good first night and got the kids to bed fairly early.

From Christmas

December 30th was Christmas. There were tons of presents from Santa as you can see--we almost lost Mitzi. See our Picasa page for pics of the kids opening presents. We had a nice Christmas dinner that Nana made--even though we had to excuse the Buschelmans since they had a baptism party.

From Christmas

On Dec 31st we went to Free State for lunch. L'Opa reserved the upstairs private room for our group. There are still a few extra seats at the table, so only a few more kids allowed. Afterwards we toured the campus in the car and saw the Chi-O fountain look like it was crystalized but really they just used lots of plastic bottles to make it look neat. We saw the new Oread hotel that they are constructing on the north end of campus. Future spot for the Keel-Clan to stay?

From Christmas

We then went to Jaybowl with our friends Matt, Jen, Luke and Faith. We used the bumpers. They have a great deal--one lane of bowling, including shoes, up to 8 people per lane, for just $18 per hour. Not bad entertainment for 4 kids!

From Christmas

We then went back to the Keel house for New Year's Eve. The kids got cool glasses and glowing bracelets. The kids had their countdown at 10pm. Dominic was conked out as was Rose. The adults then counted down at midnight after a night of drinking and games. It was a pretty fun night. Some games (like "Things") are a lot more fun with people drinking. On Jan 1st Katie, Mitzi and I went to Mass since Katie and I couldn't go the night before. We had leftover Christmas dinner for our last meal in Lawrence.

From Christmas

On Jan 2 we went to Salina for one night. We opened presents and found that one of the dogs there ate most of our presents that we had shipped to Salina. The girls were really excited that their "friends" / cousins were able to make it over to play that night.

From Christmas

We drove to KC on the 3rd. We opened presents that night. On the 4th we had a great day. We went to Crown Center to do a little shopping. Then we went to Quiznos for a quick lunch. We then went to see the movie "The Princess and the Frog." The girls loved it, though there were a few scary parts. The most exciting part was when my dad spilled his coke on him and partly on Rose. Luckily she survived, though it was touch and go for a while. We went to 119th street to do a little shopping, then off to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was nice to have a big salad after days of heavy foods.

From Christmas

From Christmas

The next day the girls went to get their hair cut, hopefully to cut down on tangles. Afterwards we had a combination of Yello Sub (ok, really Planet Sub) and Gates BBQ for lunch. We then went to Wonderscope for a few hours. It's a really cool place--take your kids if you go to KC! The girls tested balls rolling, played doctor, went in a Lego submarine, dressed up as astronauts, and pretended to go shopping. For dinner we went to one of the best places in KC--Gojo Japanese Steak House. We all had leftovers.

We drove back on Wednesday the 6th. We left early to miss the big snow storm that was hitting Iowa in the early afternoon. We were lucky and only had a few very light snow showers.

I'm on vacation until next Monday. Plan for me for this week: demolition of our upstairs bathroom!

Christmas

From Collages

We had a great Christmas. I had to work Christmas Eve until about 4:30 and have had to carry my pager around since then since I am on home backup call, but have able to stay home and enjoy the last few days with everyone. We spent a immediate-family only Christmas. On Christmas Eve Katie braved the crowds of kids and took our kids (without me) to Mass at 4pm. There was bedlam from what I heard. Kids everywhere. We weren't able to make it to practice so our kids weren't in the procession, which drove our kids to tears. Then they really didn't do well with the crowd. But, they made it home with no casualties. We had a nice supper and the kids went to sleep in record time after being placed in bed. Santa came by and put together a nice wooden crib for the girls' dolls. He was rewarded with hand-picked cookies and milk.
On Christmas morning the girls actually slept in a bit. Once they got up they were amazed at the presents under the tree. The big unwrapped presents included the crib and a new 2-3 person sled. They both opened their stockings and enjoyed a flashlight, tape measure, balloons to make balloon animals and a snow-globe each. They were allowed to open Santa's gifts, then we had breakfast (homemade cinnamon rolls!) and then we had to go to church since I didn't make it on the 24th. It was much less crowded. When we got home, they were eager to open all the rest of the presents, including one each from grandma and grandpa. They really like their G&G presents (weaving thing for Mary Ann, doll for Rose, water mat for Peter). They also liked the other gits, most notably big (2' x 3') floor puzzles, Disney princess find-things books, fishing game, and Ice Age Meltdown movie from Deacon Scott.
Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Costco and Michaels. When we got back I took the girls sledding after the sun went down. We had a blast on the new sled. It was pretty bumpy with packed snow. So much so that the front of our new sled now had a baseball sized hole in it...
Today we went to to church and then went to a new restaurant for breakfast. Katie took a 2.5 hour nap and we then kept on working trying to get ready for our big vacation. We head to St Louis to see those St Louis Keels. On Tuesday we meet up with the Oklahoma Keels to go visit Oma en route to going to Lawrence. Tuesday will be the Keel Christmas Eve, with Wednesday being Christmas day. We'll see the Thomas-Vogrins on New Years Eve after having lunch at Free State (reserved upper room for the big clan). Then on the 2nd we head to Salina, then on the 3rd back to Kansas City for a few days.
We'll get more pictures up, but we do have some up to mid-December on Picasa. Don't forget to check out our YouTube page too!

Back in Madison

Well, we're back! Did you miss us? Well, most likely if you're reading this you actually saw us in Missouri or Kansas...but, we can act like the postings on here are their own person, so you have missed us in that case...

Anyway, we took a trip out southwest to Missouri and Kansas. We started out after I got off work on the Friday before Christmas. First stop: KC MO. We went to Crown Center on Saturday and stood in line for 2 hours to see Santa. Luckily we were able to trade off who was in line so everyone could go around Crown Center for a list. Then, we went to Mission KS for Faith's baptism--Katie and I were the Godparents! Whoo-hoo!

On Sunday we went to see Katie's grandpa Mac and aunts Vicki (aka Mickey Mouse) and Mary Lou. Then off to Go-Jo's for dinner. Mary Ann says it's "a little scary" when the big flame comes up.

On Monday we drove to Salina KS to spend the night and Christmas morning with my family. We got lots of great presents. Mary Ann did all the right things in acting totally pumped by her presents.

On Tuesday we drove to Lawrence where we pretended to be a day behind, so we celebrated Christmas Eve on Christmas night and then opened presents the next morning. Again, Mary Ann was totally pumped, especially by the big kitchen that Santa gave her!

We drove back on Thursday so I could go to work on Friday. It snowed a bunch on Friday, so we missed the big storm. And, it had snowed a lot on the Saturday we were in KC, so we missed that storm. All in all not bad driving, thank the Lord!

Here's a fun article from a priest in KC talking about how much fun a Wii is!

Lots of new pics in many albums--take a look!