Sisterhood

Madison is visiting us over the Christmas break from school and that means it's the season for some serious, concentrated, fit as much in as we can, family time.  It's different being all together again and seems to take a bit of time to adjust, but I think we're all used to each other at this point. 

Her first full day home was spent recovering from almost twenty-four straight hours of travel. And we managed to fit in a sisters photo shoot in there as well. It's been almost three years since we've had pictures of these beauties taken so it was certainly time for an update. My sweet friend Heather is a photographer and she gave us some time that afternoon, even though the movers were coming to pack her family out the very next day. We're all very happy with the photographs she captured for us.  There's nothing like sisters happy to be together again after a year apart!

The next day we headed out to see the new Star Wars movie. Madison, Emily, and Abigail all spent most of the movie silently geeking out. After the movie, we did a little shopping because every time I see Madison I feel the need to clothe her. Probably because I don't get the chance to see her and buy the things she needs the rest of the year. The only problem with this is that she hates shopping! We kept things as focused as we could so that it wouldn't take any longer than was absolutely necessary.  We found her some cute outfits for going to church without making her shop for too terribly long. 

On Wednesday we took a quiet day at home to catch up on homework and housework. Because the laundry doesn't care that you've got family in town. That evening we finally decorated gingerbread houses. Every day that week it had been on the list of things to do and every day it would be pushed to another day. I just wasn't mentally prepared for the work of assembling five houses, or for the mess that decorating the houses brings. One half of that equation was solved when we saw these cute preassembled houses at Aldi. 

Decorating gingerbread houses is always fun and never a competition, but sometimes the kids tend to mix those things up and act like it is always a competition and never fun. This year I was fielding lots of questions, such as:  If it was a competition who do you think would win? Which house do you think is the most colorful? Which is the most creative? Who do you think has the best roof/Christmas tree/gingerbread person? Just like our kids, they were all the best in their own special way.

We took a quick trip up the road to Castle Rising. Becca and Louis went here when they visited in October and enjoyed it, but we'd never been. We took advantage of a chilly but rain-free day and went exploring. We had the entire place to ourselves for most of our visit which was so cool. 

Our first order of business was walking along the massive earthworks that surround the stone keep. They're almost 60 feet tall and wrap completely around the castle. It was surprising to see how well preserved the building was, especially as it was built almost 900 years ago. 

The inside of the building required some imagination. There wasn't much left to see in most of the keep. Just walls and empty windows and faint outlines where ceilings and fireplaces once must have been. There was one area at the top of a dark, winding, narrow set of stairs that was still complete but it felt much newer than the rest of the castle. Emily brought a tiara instead of a weapon so we played princesses for a little while.

We were about to call it a day and head back to the car but there was one more spot we hadn't seen yet. The ruins of an old Norman church are on the grounds so we ran over to have a quick look around. Without meaning to we saved the most fun at Castle Rising for last because the girls had an epic battle right there in the ruins! I think Samantha and Natalie were the bad guys? I only say this because Emily kept demanding that they tell her where her father was (Tell me where my father is!!) Natalie had us all dying with laughter when she finally responded and said, "Your father is gay! So he couldn't have made your mother pregnant! Your real father is your uncle!!" It was a perfect way to end our time at Castle Rising.

It's been so sweet to have this time to be together. In between all the highlights, there's been plenty of relaxing downtime. We've stayed up much too late, watched movies, played games, sung songs, and just generally enjoyed each other's company.