Christmas-New Years, the Fun doesn't end

As soon as the Christmas weekend was over, we were invaded! Jeff's family came down from Utah, and his brother and family came up from Redondo Beach and the whole family was together (at times). We had a week packed with activities.
For Day 1, we went to Griffith Park. I was unable to go, I stayed home with kids that were under the weather. They went to the Train Park and climbed on the trains, then up the hill to the observatory. It was a clear night, but the place was packed so they were unable to glance through the telescope, but they had a lot of fun playing near the thermal camera.
Day 2 we had a Ping Pong Tournament in the garage. Everyone played and the tournament went well. Some games were blowouts and some were nail biters. The final game was between Jeff and his older brother. Age triumphed and Jeff lost. But we all enjoyed playing together.


On Thursday we went to Magic Mountain. Despite purchasing a season pass, this was Jeff's first and only trip to the park this year. Oh well. It was a terrible day to go, it was bitter cold. To add to the misery, it was fairly crowded and half of the rides were closed. Hence the remaining rides were swamped with long lines. We only went on two rides, then I challenged them to go on the water ride, the only ride with a short line. They did, and Jeff wound up much wetter than he anticipated. That ended our day, but we had a good time being together anyways.
Our last day with the Stouts coincided with the last day of the year. We welcomed in the New Year with a rousing night of feasting and games. Chips and salsa, Martinelli's and peanut butter cups were consumed freely as we played Apples to Apples then topped the night off with a rousing game of Ligretto. We even convinced Grandpa to join in the game, that was a big treat! We are glad they came and spent some time with us.