Draeger Familie Nieuws: Christmas in Wisconsin (aka, I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas)

Hello!

We celebrated Christmas with our family in Wisconsin. This was going to be our first trip with Julia farther than an hour away... I was really nervous!

We left the 21st (of December) and drove to Houston, MN, where my aunt & uncle (and wonderful cousins!) live. The drive was very foggy and we even opted to take a longer way to my family's home so that we could avoid twisty and curvy roads. Julia was a champ in the car and we only ended up stopping once to feed her and then another time to feed ourselves.

After a fun evening and following morning with the Rischette family in Houston (YUM, I loved those cranberry walnut muffins!), we drove to Tomah. When we left Houston, the rain / snow was already starting to come down, and by the time we hit Tomah, we could tell that a storm had set in. We celebrated Christmas with my mom and dad that night at their house, and we had a good time eating, drinking, and opening presents. And, Auntie Lissy enjoyed her new niece while they both took a snooze.

When I was up in the middle of the night with Julia, I could tell that the weather was bad outside, even though I couldn't see it. So, I wasn't surprised to wake up Sunday morning (the 23rd) to a WHOLE BUNCH of snow. And, it was still snowing! We had planned to drive to Mauston (Grandma Schroeder's) that day and spend the day with the Schroeder family, but everyone was quickly cancelling because of the road conditions. Adam and I were expected to drive up to Spencer later that day, so we decided to head to Mauston anyway. While on the way, we received a phone call from Adam's mom telling us that she had cancelled Christmas for the night and that we should stay in Mauston. We celebrated Christmas in Mauston with Grandma and Grandpa, Lis brought KFC so we wouldn't starve, and we watched a VERY sad loss to the Bears (Packers game). We stayed in Mauston that night and then proceeded to head to Spencer on the 24th.

On the 24th, we celebrated Christmas with Adam's family in Spencer. We had missed his brother Brian due the weather the day before, but we were able to see his parents, sister Claire (and brother-in-law Dan), and brother Alex. Julia was 'new' to Auntie Claire and Uncle Alex. And, Julia was also ONE MONTH OLD on the 24th! Wow! That happened fast! And, we enjoyed a visit from Deacon Keith, a friend of ours from college who was staying with his parents over Christmas.

The 25th was a whirlwind of a day. We had Christmas at Adam's aunt Theresa's in Marshfield. HOWEVER, before we wanted to do two things.

First, we wanted to see Adam's grandparents... so we drove to their house, and I visited with Grandma while Adam and Grandpa played with the concertina (Adam wanted to record Grandpa playing his concertina). And, then we were to drive to Adam's sister's to assemble the picnic table that we had brought with us all the way from Pella as a Christmas gift. Adam had built his sister (and brother-in-law) a picnic table for Christmas, disassembled it, strapped it to the hood of our car, and then we drove it to Wisconsin. Although we had wanted it to be a surprise setup of the table, because of the weather, our plans were thwarted. However, we had printed out a picture of Adam sitting at the table and wrapped it as Claire & Dan's 'gift'. How fun to see their faces when they opened that box! :)

We had a lovely lunch and gift exchange with the Bannach side of Adam's family. Adam played Santa this year to all of the small children, and handed out gifts accordingly. At 5 PM, we knew we needed to get going, as we were supposed to stop in Tomah yet that night and then drive back to Pella.

We left for Tomah, and Julia was able to meet her cousins (Laila and Hannah). We stayed in Tomah until 8 PM, and then began the long trek back to Pella. I'll spare the details, but we rolled into our garage at 3 AM on December 26th... what a drive that turned out to be! We loved visiting our family and seeing everyone for Christmas, but we couldn't help but think that we were also glad to be home. I nursed Julia and Adam dragged all of the stuff in from our car... and then we all crashed!

Here are pictures from our weekend:

Leaving Pella: