Christmas in Kentucky

On Friday, Alecia, Mike, and I set out on the road. First we drove to Chicago, where we dropped Alecia off at the airport. She is now in Romania for the next few weeks. Then Mike and I drove about 6 more hours to Ohio. On the way, Mike experienced the deliciousness of White Castle for the first time ;) We met up with my parents and brother and spent the night at my Aunt's house. Saturday morning, we drove another 3.5 hours down to Kentucky. We went to another aunt's house and hung out there for awhile. I wanted to show Mike around "our part of Kentucky" so we went in search of a coal mine. We couldn't find one at first and I ended up driving through 3 counties, up and down the twisty mountain roads. It was fun :) Then I realized I had stuff in my trunk that they needed to set up for the Christmas party so we brought that to the place where the party was. I got new directions and we went out again looking for the coal mine. Finally we found one, thought it wasn't the one I was looking for, but it was still neat to see. We headed back to my aunt's house and played with my cousins for a while. Then we headed back to the Senior Citizen's Center for the party. This was the first family Christmas party I've ever gone to. We got there about 4:30, party was supposed to start at 5:30, and already people were arriving! Mike and I stood off to the side and I tried to tell him who everyone was. In my family, that's quite a challenge. About 130 people came to the party. We ate and talked, and Santa came to visit the younger kids. Sunday morning, Mike and I left at 6 to head home. We arrived home about 4, with a few minutes to relax before I had to be at church to get ready for the dance. It was a busy weekend, but we had a great time!!!




This is an office building in Columbus, they had the indoor lights on to spell out HAPPY HOLIDAYS. It was really cool!














My cousin, Tracey, dressed as Santa and had a sack stuffed with toys for the kids.

Everyone crowded around to get gifts. The youngest got stuffed Curious Georges. The middle boys got cars from the movie Cars and the girls got princess dolls. The teenagers got money.