Christmas recap 2025

We spent the weeks around Christmas traveling. Kansas City area to Missouri to Pennsylvania to New York, back to Missouri, back to Kansas. It's hard to post a ton of photos because I don't like to post other people's kids, but let's see what's on my camera roll that's worth sharing. 

Things started out okay when it came to traveling from Kansas to Pennsylvania by myself with two kids, but then I got the call somewhere in Ohio that a tree had fallen on our property in Wyoming and that set the tone for the rest of the trip. 

I felt a lot like Mike McCluskey fielding calls and receiving and delivering bad news while he drives, because I had to keep going back and forth with the management company and with Scott. 

Honestly, we would've left the tree there had it not fallen on the tenant's truck...

Then I parked my gas vehicle in a charging spot at Sheetz because there were no other spots available. I reinforced how electric car owners waste their time when they sit charging their vehicles. Wells is well-versed in this rhetoric by now. 

Scott and I went out to lunch one day. Felt very midwestern, asking for a side of ranch with my fries. 

The Michael Scott plasma screen TV situation happening in my bedroom in PA. This TV wasn't there when I was living there but it's for-real hard to see. 

We've spent the last few weeks watching all the football and all the Stranger Things. 

Honestly, it was just really cold or windy or snowy or icy for our entire trip. I think we had one calm day? Maybe. Scott was working outside on some projects the entire time and winter in PA isn't great for that. 

Santa came to Pennsylvania via nanny and pap. We don't buy big gifts for Christmas because we are legitimately sick of moving things around...I learned my lesson with the Paw Patrol tower in 2022. 

We did some other gifts for the kids when we got back to Kansas.

After Christmas, Scott and I took off for Buffalo, New York, which is another great winter destination! He bought tickets to the Bills game back in September. 

We knew it was going to rain. We knew the weather was going to be miserable. Scott said, "This will be as fun as we make it" and I said "I'm notorious for making things more fun", which he thought was really funny.

Again with the side of ranch. 

We stayed at an air b and b on Lake Ontario. Literally, half a block from the lake so when those Lakeshore Flood Warnings came rolling in, we knew they'd be closing roads down, which means we ended up leaving a day early. It would've been nice to sight-see and check out Niagara Falls and walk along the Erie Canal but..December. 

This reminded me so much of Alaska, to be honest. You don't get weather like this in the midwest. 

Then the forecast for the game:

Every few hours a new warning would pop up. 

We did have really good seats but the rain kept on coming...

The backstory: Scott has always been a Bills fan. I'm not sure where that began, but he has Bills gear from the 90s. 

In 2017-2018, we were living at the University of Wyoming when Wells was born. Josh Allen was the quarterback for the team that year and was drafted to the Bills. So there's a connection there, and it was kind of neat to go to Buffalo and actually see the place. I've been to NY several times but not to Buffalo before this. (I would maybe recommend August/September instead of December :)

Anyway, Buffalo is about 3 hours north of where my parents live, so it was an easy drive. 

The lot where we parked was dirt/gravel. By the end of the night it was a solid ice rink. Again, reminded me of Alaska, where it was common to carry kitty litter in your trunk to give traction if you found yourself stuck. 

Perfect snowflakes in Scout's fur. 

Sorry. Just so much snow and so much cold and so much wind and wet. I was reminded, a few years ago living in Pittsburgh, just how long and dark the northeast winters really can be. I think I would get some seasonal depression living back there again. 

Meanwhile, 60 degrees and sunny in Kansas City this week. 

Anyway, I would like to thank my parents for accommodating us and taking care of the dogs. We don't board them just because but Scout takes medications and Maverick is coming off a month of immuno-suppressive steroids and actually wasn't supposed to be around other dogs....so we would've really been in a tight spot if we'd had plans to board.  

We were able to spend a lot of time with all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and Wells did not want to come home. 

Another season of Christmas travels is finished and we're ready to lock-in for winter. 

Mid-taking down the tree on Sunday night

If we had more space in the living room, I'd leave it up for another month.

In 2012, I took it down in March.