Happy Christmas Eve!

Surprise!

Ben and I bought a time-share a few years ago on our anniversary trip to Florida. I know... I know... we are idiots suckers!!

Anyway, in two years we have yet to use our three week vacation. So, this year we decided to get a little cold weather fix during the holiday season. We got what we asked for!!

That is snow on my left eye. It was snowing!! 6-8 inches of beautiful white snow! Though, I was just as happy to drive out of it as I was to wake up to it. This girl loves her warm weather; Not gonna lie!

Leaving this on Tuesday...

To wake up to this on Wednesday...

and this...

Was traumatic.... but, we took our lemons snow and made lemonade ice cream!

We decided, last minute, to shorten our trip to Colorado and surprise everyone from home. We stayed at our time-share in Steamboat Springs for two days, packed the car back up, and headed for Saint Louis!!

Jenny-Bug taking a potty break in the Colorado mountains before the snow storm

First on our list of victims family to surprise were Grandpa and Grandma Mac! They were shocked and extremely surprised to see us at 1:00 am (woops!) We hugged and went strait to bed but woke up nice a early to get in some good visiting. After hanging with them all day we decided to go to our favorite Lake of The Ozarks restaurant, JB Hook's.

Okay so thats a bit of an exaggeration. It's not necessarily our favorite but it is the place that Ben took me to impress me with his fat wallet I mean, spoil me on the night he proposed. It is, hands down, the yummies place to eat at the lake however, it is not light on the pocket book which we half laughed/half cried about when we got the bill. It was worth it though, this was after all suppose to be our anniversary vacation!

After dinner we went back to the lake house and played some Skipbo with the grandparents and headed back to bed to rest up for our next drive. We woke up, packed up yet again and headed for Saint Louis.

Three short hours later we were crossing the good old Lewis & Clark bridges to our little river town.

Next on our list were my parents. We picked up the nephews on our way over and had it all planned out that Owen and Turner would show up at the front door holding the girls and say that they just found these puppies wondering around the front yard and then we would pop out and surprise whoever answered the door. Unfortunately, Mom saw my freakishly tall husband running across the yard and yelled, "BEN'S OUTSIDE!!" before we could hide.

Nonetheless, Mom and Dad were both super excited to see us. Though, Mom scolded us for not giving her proper time to plan a Tuesday Thanksgiving dinner since we would have to leave, to drive the 32 hours back to San Diego, on Thursday morning.

After my parents we took off to surprise Ben's family. The only problem was that we could not find Ben's family!! We finally found his brother, Brad at the family business who told us that Bev was at her best friend's house cuddling her best friend's new grandson and Bob was at the Rams/Bears game with their friend Steve.

We wondered aimlessly through Wood River and East Alton for awhile and then decided to go see Ben's friend Tommy and his new baby girl but they were packing up to leave for their Thanksgiving festivities. So, we headed over to Ben's Grandma Melba's where we ran in to his Uncle Brian and Aunt Karen who we have not seen since we moved to California.

We had a good chat with them and then headed to Maryville to surprise Bev at Steve and Nancy's house. Surprise her, we did! She was shocked and elated to see us at the front door. We waited for Bob and Steve to get home, stayed at visited for an hour or so and then headed out to meet a small hoard of our friends and family that had gathered at one of our favorite pizza joints, Roma's Pizza, for dinner.

The following night a bunch of our friends were gathering at Fast Eddie's to visit with our friend John who moved to Alaska last year. So, we took that opportunity to surprise them as well!! It worked out perfectly!

Now that the surprising was over Ben was on to his next goal. Eat at as many of our favorite places as possible!! We did pretty well I have to say.

Mini Corral

China King

Imo's Pizza

Roma's Pizza

Fast Eddie's

Los Tres Amigos

Not bad at all!!

On Wednesday night we joined in on what I have now been told by Brad's girlfriend is called, "Skansgiving" to catch up with some old high school friends and of course hang out with the bestie! We made our rounds at Bossanova, Mac's, and Chez Marilyn followed up by a 2am drive through hit at Jack in the Box. Perfect Night!

After all of our belly stuffing we headed on out and started the 32 hours drive back to San Diego.

To give ourselves a break from driving we stopped at the Grand Canyon for a little site seeing. It was just like everyone says, simply breathtaking. Photographs just don't do it justice. The puppies really enjoyed the short hike and crashed out on the rest of the way home so that was a plus!

Our munchkins cuddling in their new bed they got from Grandma & Grandpa Mac

All in all it was a great little Thanksgiving trip but, I have to say I am happy to be home in my slightly less frigid warmer weather!

Happy Holidays! We will be packing and moving to our new little beach cottage during our holidays!! So excited to get away from the college dorm/frat house/apartment life that we have been living in!!