Christmas Eve

Everyone slept in this morning. After breakfast, I dropped off Molly, Megan, Adam & Maddie at Gardner's to make their costumes for their little play at Gma Hartzler's on Christmas Day. I went to the bank, Pat Catan's and JcPenny's for a couple more things. I didn't think Wooster was crazy at all. Then I picked up PaPa John's pizza and back to Gardner's. After we ate pizza we went to practice the play and then back home for naps before our Baltic Christmas.

About 4:30PM I went to take some dirty clothes down the basement to the washer. I seen water all over the floor. Yep, my water heater decided to rust out sometime today. So I quick call Milan and he happened to be pulling in the driveway. He pulled out the hot water heater and needed to do some re-routing (we can get hot water from our outdoor wood burner). So I called my dad at his auto parts store (his shed) for some elbows and pieces. He came over and him and Milan had it fixed by 6:30PM. Luginbuhl's had picked up the kids and my food and headed out to Baltic's ahead of us.

Aunt Nettie & Grandpa Baltic (and everyone else who helped) cooked up one awesome meal!!! We didn't eat till about 8:00PM. Grandpa makes awesome soup, which could be a meal in itself. Then we had hard rolls and nut roll. The three meats were: fried chicken from Belgrades, ham balls with glaze, and prime rib---it was the best!! Audrey & girls made party potatoes. I took corn, Steph made broccoli with rice and Aunt Mary brought green bean casserole. Aunt Karen made my favorite salad. Elaine did her annual rainbow jello. Traci brought spinach dip & salsa for tortillas. I'm starting to forget what else we had. I'll have to add more when I think of it because I think we had about 15 different dishes. After supper and dishes we all sat around and talked. The kids played (the boys ran like Indians according to Gpa) and we took pictures. Then they started playing games and cards. Aunt Mary played Bingo with the kids and even had prizes. Aunt Nettie made each of us a nut roll--which according to Milan is better than any gift! This was the first year we did not do gifts. I thought it was fine but a few of the kids still asked where the gifts were. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention dessert....a whole other meal!! Awesome cookies, pastries, fruit! Arrived home after 12:30AM!!!!