Christmas In Texas

**GUEST BLOGGER**

 ~ Eric Hendrickson ~

Day One ~ Christmas Day ~ Dec. 25th

After we celebrated our family Christmas in the morning, we headed off for Texas to see my mom, brothers, and family.

I get into the zone while driving.  I enjoy listening to sports radio and also listened to my favorite theologian, John MacArthur.

The kids like to watch movies and read books.

A family selfie (in the car) about a mile from my mom's house.  We made it with only one stop for a bathroom break.

Day Two ~ Dec. 26th

We weren't celebrating Christmas until after lunch, so my Bros and I decided to tee off first thing in the morning.

We played a 3 man scramble with a goal of -2.  We ended up +3.  It was pitiful golf playing, and I was the weakest link. 

The course was difficult and we had never played it before.  Marc had a golf app on his phone that helped with knowing the course layout and distance to the green.

I forgot to take pictures until the 18th hole, so you see us putting out.

It was great to see the cousins playing.  Looks like they are playing the game, TROUBLE.

Thank you Mom, for cooking a wonderful meal.

Mom had a nice tree that had far too many gifts underneath it.

The little girls all loved their new matching hats.

Above, all of the grandkids with Grandma Sharon

Uncle Tom stopped by for awhile.  Merry Christmas.

Day Three ~ Dec. 27th

On Sunday, Bret and his family, Marc and my family went to church services at my Mom's church.

The kids went up front for the children's sermon.  Silas called the preacher an "angel".

My mom sang a solo called Heirlooms, which was beautiful.  Prior to singing, she talked about different heirlooms in our family.  Having three boys, she came to love sports.  She mentioned that completing March Madness college basketball brackets and fantasy football are some of our heirlooms.  I remember my mom always beating us on the brackets and that continues to this day.

Silas loves Uncle Marc.

What a blessing it was for the entire family to go to church together.

Mom, you had some knuckleheads as adolescents, but we turned out alright.

Now, we get to teach our kids to not do the things we used to do.

Sounds so simple....

How perfect it was to be able to sit with my brothers Sunday for the championship football game between Marc and I.  I took home the Nickelfritz trophy for our family fantasy football league.

The girls left the boys to their football  and headed out to get pedicures.

Oh, so relaxing.

This was Sarah and Phoebe's first time to get pedicures.  The little girls all got manicures too.

Very nice, much better than I can do.  Notice the snowflake designs that all three of my girls got.

Day Four ~ Dec. 28th

Monday morning we helped Mom run some errands and then headed to Bret's house for awhile.  Then we all headed to the bowling alley.

Bowling sounded like a good idea, but it turned out to be a lot of work.

The kids did bumper bowling

I remember going to the bowling alley for bowling league with my Mom when I was the kids age.  She was a pretty good bowler,  My Dad has bowled a 300 game.  I did not get my bowling skills from my parents.

We were able to get 1 and 1/2 games in.  The highlight for me was rolling the bowling ball 25.4 miles per hour, which was 3 miles an hour faster than Bret (we compete at everything).  However, I found that if I rolled closer to 21 mph that I knocked down more pins.

Next we went to the trampoline place.  I decided to sit this one out.  It was fun to watch the kids jump into the foam blocks and watch my brothers dunk.

I am surprised Marc didn't tear down the rim with that thunderous dunk.

Day Five ~ Dec. 29th

We took some pictures before we headed out Tuesday morning around 10am.  We had a great time.  Thanks Mom.  We love you and Merry Christmas.