there's no place like home for the holidays.

even though we were slightly concerned with the weather forecast, austin and i loaded up the car and the dog and headed for virginia early friday morning. after the six hour trip with surprisingly little traffic, we made it to mom and timmy's.

christmas eve we did dinner at tim's sister's house with all of tim's family. we had a delicious meal of green beans, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, ham, rolls, sweet potatoes, and deviled eggs. ok, so i only ate the beans, mac and cheese, and potatoes. and of course, i had plenty of dessert.

my dad's family also does their christmas gathering on christmas eve, so we headed over there after we played some wii at tim's sister's house.

here's my sister, jessie, and my brother, seth, opening their gifts from austin and me. {poor jessie was sick and feeling terrible. her littleeye was all red and swollen, too}.

we got them red-hat-tee-shirts {i made them, actually}. the red-hat-tee-shirts is a long standing inside joke kind of thing between the four of us, but at this point nobody can remember what exactly was so funny about it, just that it's funny. jessie and seth said they were so close to getting us the same thing, but changed their minds last minute. how funny would it have been if all four of us would have opened the same present?

seth decided to rock the red-hat-tee-shirt for the rest of the night.

austin and i gave dad and robin a gift basket filled with organic pastas, pasta sauces, and other things.

the pups sat quietly while gifts were exchanged.

christmas morning, austin and i slept in waaaay late, since we had done so much running around the day before. when we finally got up, it was a white christmas for sure.

since my brother and sister-in-law planned to bring both of their dogs, timmy decided to keep the christmas tree outside {the boxer likes to steal ornaments off the tree}. it's a little charlie brown like, but that's ok. :)

mom and timmy got austin the coffee maker he's been wanting since we got married. it's one of those fancy ones that makes one cup of the specialty coffees {and it makes hot chocolate, too!}.

i got a new emergency preparedness kit for my car {mine was stolen a few years ago} and some fix-a-flat!

and we gave mom and timmy a gift basket of some wine-themed things, complete with wine, of course.

after we opened gifts, we went up the road to mom's parent's house for our usual brunch-like meal. my uncle lewis came in {only getting stuck in the snow in a few spots} and we all just hung out for a little bit.

juliet got to play in the snow.

our last christmas day stop was at robin's parent's house. austin and i braved the continued snow to head up the mountain to see the rest of the family for a few hours. it didn't stop snowing, so we couldn't really stay too long...

yesterday morning, austin and i packed up the car and headed down the road back to tennessee. the roads were still a little bit rough, but we made it.

it was great seeing all of my family. i only wish that i could have stayed longer, because i miss them all so much. hopefully i'll be able to head back to virginia sometime soon to visit again. and i think austin and i are going to try to organize a little ski trip with the trumps in boone to visit seth.

i hope everyone had a wonderful christmas with your family and friends!