The Life and Times of the Sullivan Family: Christmas with Carolyn

We were delighted to once again host our parents in our little house here in KC: this time Carolyn Sullivan came out to celebrate an early Christmas with us. Tom unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute because his back went out, and we missed him a lot, but we're looking forward to seeing both of them again in the Spring.

We went shopping for maternity clothes while John was at work,

enjoyed an incredible meal at Jack Stack's BBQ, one of the original BBQ places in Kansas City,

visited the Steamboat Arabia, a museum about a ship that sunk in the MO river in the 1800s, but was covered in mud, so all its merchandise and goods were perfectly preserved.

It was fascinating to see all the normal goods that were taken to the frontier towns. They had everything from keys, to boots, to beautiful British china, to tools... even French perfume!

Here's John with one of the huge paddle wheels.

And we celebrated Christmas with hot spiced cider and cheesecake!

John and his Mommy.

We got Tom on Skype while we were opening our gifts... it was almost like he was there! Almost.

Carolyn, thanks so much for coming. We thoroughly enjoyed your visit, and made lots of fun memories!

After Carolyn left to go back to Washington, John had a full day off from work, with no other commitments, so we enjoyed a rare day at home, just the two of us, to celebrate the completion of his first semester at IHOPU, and to kick off the Christmas vacation. Our first surprise was to wake up to the first snowfall of the year. We haven't been around snow in quite a while, and it's a lovely feeling to wake up to a blanket of snow, knowing you don't have to set foot outside or go scrape your car if you don't want to!