Dinner With The Fam

Tonight the whole family was able to get together and have a dinner to celebrate Rich being home. He is on leave for Christmas and it was so great to see him again and all be together. It's been a while since we have all seen each other which made for a good night of laughs and fun. There was even a push up contest which was inevitable with Rich doing hundreds of push ups on a daily basis. Stephen took the bait and lost but amazingly only by a little bit. That is because Rich has been at a lower elevation for so long that he becomes oxygen deprived as his lungs haven't had time to adjust to the altitude yet. You can tell this is happening in the video as he slows down, but still does more than Stevo. He is in great shape and looks really good. It's great to be together as a family this season.


Sammie was so excited that Rich was coming home. One morning she got up and all she wanted to do was look at pictures of Rich. After a little while Paula told her they needed to go eat breakfast. She got a terribly sad look on her face and said "OK". For the past few days she has just said his name over and over. It's fun to see her so excited like the rest of us.



This is Rich telling a facinating story about some training....



And this is everyone so intently listening!



Sammie was having so much fun riding around the house pushing the buttons that made music. Everyone would start to dance when she rode by and she loved it! Braden was chasing Lucy (Rich and Summer's dog) around all night and it was really funny when Lucy decided to chase him back. Unfortunately I didn't get a video of that. I pulled out the camera too late. Gotta be quicker with kids.



This is a Christmas tradition we have done for a long time. The ledge above the living room is decorated for Christmas and every year this reindeer seems to fall off. Luckily the Bear decides to save him every time!



Here is Santa's workshop and the hard working Elves!



And here is the video of the push up contest. Like I explained before, you have to give Rich some slack on this because of the elevation change. He has only been home a couple days which is just the right amount of time to start feeling the oxygen levels falling in his body. He really does do hundreds of push ups a day without much of a problem!