Christmas 2018

Christmas 2018

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for December 30, 2018

Our golden retriever, Blue, has been pretty lonely since Luke and Avery left for college.  He was pretty excited for Christmas this year since we were planning on having 13 people and 4 dogs living in our house for almost a week.  Excitement was bound to follow.

My sister, Tracy, and her family were the first to arrive.  They were also bringing the three dogs with them.  Needless to say, it was never quiet again in our house for the rest of the week.

Before the rest of our family arrived, we went to Minnetonka for the day and had lunch at Maynards and went shopping at the old Minnetonka General Store.  We also stopped and posed for a bunch of pictures because we like to do that for some reason.

We saw the horse drawn carriage rides in downtown Minnetonka, so thought we'd stop and browse the stores and not go on a carriage ride.

We then went home and waited on the couch until the rest of the family arrived.

Bailey and Justin flew in from Dallas to see us.  We haven't spent this much time with them since their wedding, so we were looking forward to their company.

My sister, Tammy, her husband, David, and their daughter, Lindsay, were the last to arrive.  The house was now full and we were ready to have a good ole time.

Our first group activity was Karaoke at Hooligan's in Prior Lake.  because that's just what this family needs.  Booze and a microphone.

Growing up, I lived in a house with just my 2 sisters and mom.  There was a whole lotta singing during those days, so karaoke seems like the right thing to do when we get together.

My niece, Lindsay, did a great job singing Journey's Don't Stop Believing!

We made a couple of trips to the Mall of America.  We liked going to Benihana and visiting Nickelodeon Universe.  

We went to church on Christmas Eve and took pictures at church after the service.  Some people might think that is odd, but it's become somewhat of a family tradition for us.

The Mohars and Grandma Linda at church.

The Kelleys at church.

Grandma Linda with several of her grandchildren.

The Mohars planned to coordinate pajamas for Christmas morning.  We were all delighted to discover that Justin and David also wore the same outfit completely by accident.

As usual, the kids were spoiled and had a lot of fun opening their presents.

We always have to drag the Texas people out on a frozen lake so they can say they did it.  We had some weather in the forties for a couple of days so there was some nervousness going on the lake, but it was thick enough so we didn't have any breakthroughs.

We went tubing at Buck Hill which was a bunch of fun.

It was pretty busy and hard for us to all go down at the same time, so we all went down at random times.

We went down the hill about 5 or 6 times which was a lot of fun.  The hills were so fast they had to lay down strips of carpet so we didn't go crashing into anything at the bottom.

She may be 76 years old, but Grandma Linda is still a pretty good sport and was looking forward to her trip down the hill.

We were all really excited to go eat Chinese at D Fongs in Savage for the Kelley's last night in town.  It was a chaotic few days, but we wouldn't trade it for the world.  It's so awesome to spend time with the family over the holidays.

Krazy Kory even made an appearance at the end of the week.  He and Harli joined us for dinner at the Outback and then we went to see Aquaman in 3D at the Imax.  That was a pretty mind blowing experience!