Visiting Illinois

The 8 hour trip to Illinois from Wisconsin seemed hardly a drive after our two 16 hour trip several days before. Our trip home for the holidays was a surprise for Lani's youngest sister, Lora. When we arrived to Lani's parents' house, we met Lani's Aunt Pat and her mom at the door. They called for Lora to come get Boo (the puppy), but when she did, she was in for a surprise! In typical middle school girl fashion, she started screaming and crying and jumping all over us. It was a wonderful reuinion. Of course, the secret was hard to keep. We made a delivery for one of the teachers in Vacaville whose brother is the pastor at a local church. Her brother, not knowing of the surprise, talked to my uncle about our trip home, who then talked to his wife, who talked to her brother-in-law who is a teacher at Lora's school, who then proceeded to talk to Lora about us coming home. Thankfully he caught on that she didn't know, and it was dropped...until Lani's dad mentioned something about putting the 3 cats in the basement the next day. But they covered their tracks enough to keep it a surprise enough for her to scream. :)

That night we watched Lora Lou play basketball. She is an amazingly graceful player. It was great to be able to see her play. We miss watching her grow up! Here are a few shots from the evening.





After the game we got to visit with some family that couldn't make it to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving the next night. Aren't these kids just cute?! :)




Wednesday night we went to Grandma Nagel's house for Thanksgiving. You should have seen the look on her face when I knocked on the door! She was flabbergasted! We had to get her to talk just to make sure she was ok! No more surprises like that for the time being... :) We enjoyed visiting with family and meeting Danielle and Heather's boyfriends. It makes me feel old to know how old they are getting! :)

The next day was Thanksgiving with Lani's dad's family. Our visit home wasn't much of a surprise to them...That was the side of the family who knew from the local pastor that we were coming home. We enjoyed visiting and playing euker tournaments. Lani and her dad teamed up and won four straight games! Woo hoo!

After the family left, we enjoyed Christmas with Lani's family. Everyone enjoyed their gifts...

The Tindall Family is getting bigger...

...and goofier!

...and even more goofy!








Everyone (except Lora) enjoys some fine Californian Wooden Valley wine...













Lora LOVED her new phone that makes animal sounds (Uncle Brian would be proud!)...











Now Bella Baby can paint in her own house...
(I get the first picture, Shana! :))











Kyle (Shana's boyfriend) is thinking about what to do with his 2 bottles of wine...

















Matt and Megan know what to do!
(They also got everything else for a wine picnic but the basket!)
















Mom and Dad Tindall got a taste of California too!




















Now Dad Tindall has a way to organize all of those Christmas lights... :)











We were so grateful that we could spend this time with Lani's family before Megan moves to Dallas, TX, in January to complete her student teaching (she's going to be a high school math teacher).