For the first time in about 10 years the Ladle side of the family got together for the holidays. Both of my brother have moved to Ohio, and all of us invaded for the holidays! We had a blast!
Our journey started at 4:15 AM after three hours of sleep and we headed for Cincinnati. We traveled on Christmas day so there was very little traffic, and also very little food. Not a fast food joint opened in sight. But that was okay as we had packed a lot of food in the car because we knew this would be the case.
Our girls traveled so extremely well. We only stopped twice for about a total of 40 minutes. The girls had fun with the treats Mom brought from the dollar section at Target. We brought Dave's laptop with tons of DVDs, we listened to books on CD, listened to music, colored and drew pictures, and played games.
We were on a mission, to surprise all the family who thought we were arriving a day later. We wanted to make it before the beginning of Christmas Dinner, and there were only two people who knew we were coming. We knocked on the door about 15 minutes before dinner and sang a rendition of "We wish you a Merry Christmas" and surprised everyone. (We made fantastic time as well making the trip in just under 12 hours) It was so fun! There are very few times in life when you can truly surprise people, and this was one of those times.
This is all of the cousins after Christmas dinner. Seven granddaughters and one lone, but extremely cute, grandson. We took a formal family picture a couple of days later. The first one since Brian (my twin) got married 9 years ago.
We told Megan that when she turned 8 she could get her ears pierced. We went to dinner at Dewey's Pizza in a mall down by the river, and we passed a Claire's boutique. There was a sign in the window free ear piercing, and Megan was sold. After dinner we all went back and witnessed this life changing event. She was a little nervous, but they did both ears at the same time so it only hurt once. She had quite the entourage cheering her on outside the window, there were 17 of us!
See she is even smiling after having it done! Look at those beautiful ears!
While were were in Dayton we went to a huge Air Force Museum. We saw tons of airplanes and the girls even got to sit in the cockpit of a couple of them. They really enjoyed that.
Now I debated and debated as to whether or not to include this in this post. But it was so interesting I just could not leave it out. This statue of Christ is outside the Solid Rock Church between Cincinnati and Dayton. We passed it many times during out trip going back and forth. And at night it would be a lit up. My brothers say they use it as a land mark when they do the traffic. "Traffic is backed up to the big Jesus statue." I guess it is the same thing they do in Washington DC with the temple. "Traffic is backed up to the Mormon Temple."
This is a little closer picture. It is an amazing size. This is one of the most interesting things I have ever seen.
This is the Ladle Family Cousin Clan (Left to Right)
Rachel (David's), Dallin (Brian's), Audrey (Brian's), Elisabeth (David's), Lydia (Brian's), Tiffany(David's)
Being the only grandson in the bunch Dallin deserves his own picture! What a cutie!
We had a great time with lots of laughs and fun. We decided that this has to happen again soon, not in another 10 years!
