Voyages of the S.S. Whalen: Back to the States Part 1

Sure it's almost two months later, but I realized I had better get this blog done or it most likely would not happen :) The day after Thanksgiving, Asher and I flew back to the States to start our one month hiatus which came into the works once we found out Sean's little brother, Ryan, was getting married.

Well I was not looking forward to a 16 hour trip with just Asher and myself - somehow we did survive. And you know what - Asher did so well!

The first part of our trip was at my parents house where Asher was able to become reacquainted with his cousins, and grand parents, and I was able to become reacquainted with Target and Kohls :) My sister already blogged about Asher and his cousin Andelyne and their crazy times together. Since I haven't gotten her pictures yet, I will just put up a link to the blog so you can check it out. They had a lot of fun together. Seth and Tade were so good with Asher too. It was great to have Brielle, Amy and Evan there too! Cousin reunion time! It was great to see them all together and having such a good time.

Asher and Andelyne being crazy monkey's.

(Asher knows that when the camera comes out, a flash goes off. He's started squinting his eyes prior to the picture being taken in anticipation of the flash - it's pretty funny :) )

They never really did stop moving since the minute we got there!

The sweet ones of the family :)

Look how nicely Evan and Ahser are playing!! The three of them are going to be trouble when they get together. I'm guessing there is going to be a power struggle between Asher and Andelyne, and Evan is going to follow along not because he has to, but because it will be seriously entertaining :)

We went to the QO ward Christmas party, which was themed "The Polar Express". Great job Heather! The kids all dressed up in their pajamas, and I even found a bathrobe for Asher, which he loves :) Of course, we had to get a picture of Asher with Santa, and we weren't sure how it was going to go. Last year, he did wonderfully. I'm thinking there were a couple of reasons for that though...One, Santa was Sean, and two, he was only a few months old and didn't know any better at the time.

This year, well, you'll see...

Maybe next year Santa!!

But the babies had fun running around the church without a care in the world :)

Asher's first experience with a drinking fountain...he was quite fascinated!

And then it was Christmas time! We were a little slow in decorating the house, but after we got the Christmas tree up, it felt a lot more like Christmas.