Iowa for Christmas

Twas the Saturday before Christmas, and a mid morning flight,
brought lines for southwest out the door, quite a horrible sight!
We stood for the skycap, not a moment to spare,
as we debated if we just leave our bag, we didn't care!

A delay of the plane left us some time to rest, as our holiday travel was put to the test!
The flight was uneventful, in Omaha we land,
as Lowell and Judy and Kristin were there, Dr. Pepper in hand.

The weather was cold, and I can't stress it enough
-26 with the windchill was really tough!
Now Henry!  Now Liv!  Now Sadie the dog!
In Iowa there is no shortage of food from the hog.

At Kathy's, we made cookies galore,
And ate them until our stomachs said "No more!"
Christmas Eve was presents, steak dinner, and church with candlelight,
Then a viewing of "Christmas Vacation" that had us laughing with delight.

Plenty of card games and the lack of TV
made for a calming trip inside for the family Lee.

It was a nice trip with the family, good for the soul,
But we will see the parents in Arizona for the BU FIESTA BOWL!!

Holiday tidings and parties

This was pretty much our only holiday weekend before Christmas, so we tried to make the most of it.  On Saturday we went to a performance by the DYAO(Denver Young Artists Orchestra), which Matt sits on the board of.  It was their holiday performance, so they played the Nutcracker Suite, one of our favorite holiday compilations.  It was a very enjoyable concert and a good turnout.

After the concert we drove south to our friend Leah's house for her ugly sweater party.  Since we had just come from a show we didn't have ugly sweaters, but it was nice to see some friends and have some yuletide cheer.

Sunday was a lazy day, as we got ready for our last week of work before we left for Iowa.

Fiesta Bowl Bound!

This past weekend included a lot of football watching...but came with a (sort of) surprising result! With Oklahoma State losing in the morning, which we didn't think would happen, Baylor's game against Texas ended up being a de facto Big 12 championship game. Baylor's win got them a Big 12 title and a trip to a BCS bowl game - the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. Woo hoo!! We were wondering what we'd get each other for Christmas so we booked our flights, bought our tickets to the game, and say "Merry Christmas" to each other. :) We're staying with Karla's parents in AZ and Lowell is going to the game with us...so our next task is to convince him to wear green and gold!

On Sunday, Karla co-hosted a baby shower for her friend Naomi. It was really fun! Matt went with Ryan to the bar - they wanted to stay as far away as possible from all the shower activities. :)

November Catch-Up

We've been delinquent in writing in our blog during November! So here's our November catch-up entry...

Karla was able to make it to the Hyman Christmas this year, which was awesome because we didn't make it last year. It was a blast! She played cards with Grandma Hyman, had some amazing meat that John brought, got an awesome Iowa Hawkeyes cap in the gift exchange, and got to spend time with some cousins she hasn't seen in a few years. She snapped a picture of Grandma and her to post on Facebook since Grandma is on there now!

After Christmas, Karla rode back to Chicago with Kristin where they made dinner at the Ronald McDonald House with friends. It was Karla's first time making dinner at the new House so she was pretty excited about that!

She stayed in Chicago for 4 days since she had a work meeting there, then headed back to Denver to put an end to Matt's week of bachelordom.

We went to see Book of Morman with Naomi and Ryan. It was hilarious and quite inappropriate at the same time. After the show, we kept our tradition of post-show hot chocolates from Starbucks.

We were in Texas with Matt's family for Thanksgiving. Apparently our nephew Caleb really, really wanted to go fishing with Uncle Matt and Aunt Karla, so we had to do that as soon as we got there. We didn't catch anything (as per usual), but we had a blast.

We went to the Parade of Lights in Fort Worth the day after Thanksgiving (after watching Iowa put down a beating on Nebraska). It was almost more fun to watch Caleb and Avery than it was watching the parade. Caleb was really into it and loved the lights, firetrucks, and horses.

Matt's highlight (over than seeing family and stuffing himself on Thanksgiving) was probably going to the Baylor vs. TCU game. We met up with some college friends of his before the game and he got to see some people he hadn't seen in years. The game was probably a little more stressful than we would have liked, but Baylor pulled it out in the end.