Our Christmas Vacation

As many of you know we went to Phoenix Arizona for Christmas this year. It was our year to spend Christmas with Brandon's family, much to the disappointment of my own family (not because they didn't want to share me, but more they didn't want to share Gavin and Tyler). My disappointment came from having to take family pictures! I really was hoping to loose a little more baby weight before any permanent reminders of how fat I get when pregnant were taken. But instead both families insisted on pictures at Christmas (boo hoo hoo). I hated the one from my family, and the ones from Brandon's family we have not seen yet, so no pics here (sorry).
On a better note, we did have a lot of fun with Brandon's family. Everybody was able to be there this year. In total there were 8 grandchildren, 9 adults, and 2 large (one very large) dogs running around the house. I know Tyler & Gavin loved playing with their cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. WE cherish the time we get to spend with them since we live so far away and it isn't very often we get to see them.
The weather was nice while we were there. A few days of cold (ha ha, 50 felt warm to us), but much warmer the rest of the time. We went to the park and the zoo. Brandon went golfing a couple of times, and I went shopping and to the movies (what more could you ask for). All in all had a great time!
Now I have to tell you why we don't have too many Christmas pictures. Before the trip Brandon and I had a little disagreement on the camera situation, which resulted in us not having very many pictures. Brandon got a new camera for Christmas (before Christmas) and wanted to bring it with us. I had no problem with this, but the trouble was he wanted to bring along it's very large carrying case. I told him I didn't mind if he took the camera, but that he should skip the case and pack it with his stuff and not carry it on the plane. I was worried about security seeing as we were traveling with 2 children, 1 stroller, 2 car seats, 1 diaper bag, a laptop, and a DVD player. I didn't think we needed to add another very large camera bag. So Brandon took what I said as if to mean that I didn't want the camera at all, and packed our much more compact Elph camera, which in the end didn't get used very much because he was using everybody elses camera's for pics. So Hardy family members please send cute pics our way!
We had a great time and didn't miss the camera much until now when I'm struggling to find cute pics to post! We hope everybody else had a wonderful Christmas and enjoys the New Year!

Gavin opening presents (mostly trying to eat the paper)

Tyler's pile O' presents

Gavin and Isaac awake at the zoo

and a few minutes later fast asleep

Tyler and Grandpa Hardy

Tyler and Brandon on the carousel