We had a wonderful time, but boy was it good to get home. Trip up was uneventful, I drove for a two and a half hour stretch while W rested, through Virginia and West Virginia. I managed to stay awake about the whole time, much unlike the last trip.
Friday we spent the day at Grammy's, then went to Hoser and Mitch's house (the little brother I married on the beach in October) and got showers and went shopping. They big boys went power shopping, Bubba, Mitch and I just headed to Walmart for supplies. Bubba went straight to bed, quite late when we got home. They were so totally awesome to let us have their HUGE king bed, and we all slept great. Bubba in the middle, and for once, no issues with him kicking/hogging the bed.
Saturday Mitch had to work, and I was promised by W a peaceful day, as he and Hoser were gonna take Bubba shopping all day. (Someone was unprepared for Christmas, can ya tell?) I did some cleaning, in preparation for the birthday party later, then relaxed in their glorious whirlpool tubby. I was going to attempt to take a nap, but W called and I joined the boys for the rest of their shopping excursion. Then we headed back to get set up for the party. Details are boring, but it went good, fun was had by all, and the food was phenomenal. I overate the whole damn time, and boy am I regretting it. Now I have FIFTEEN pounds to lose to get back to where I was! ACK!
We shipped Bubba off to Grammy's for the night, and all crashed hard, hoping to sleep in, but Grammy had planned a big family breakfast for Christmas Eve morning. We all overslept, too, and luckily they were running late as well, so after a delay, we all met up and overindulged some more. Mitch was off to her family's house, I helped Hoser wrap a ton of his gifts, W napped and Bubba watched Cars. Again. Oh yeah, while the boys were AGAIN shopping, I took an exhausted Bubba for a car ride to my hometown, to visit the cemetery and take flowers to my grandparents' graves. I also swung by the house I grew up in, snapped a picture and dropped in on the neighbors from when I lived there. Their kids weren't around, bummer, but I talked with them for a few minutes. Bubba had crashed out in the car, and didn't wake up until I pulled back into Mitch and Hoser's.
Got the car all packed back up with all our stuff, and headed to Grammy's to get ready for Christmas Eve mass. Not at midnight, but at ten. W had reached his exhaustion point in his cycle, he won't get much sleep for days, then it all catches up to him and he crashes hard for a day or so. So he didn't make it to church, but he put Bubba to bed while I went with Grammy, Uncle M and his knocked up girlfriend/fiance/whatever. She still hadn't told us all she was pregnant, but we all knew anyway. I am NOT going into all that mess.
Christmas is now a blur. Do you know how hard it is to keep a three year old from opening the gobs of presents that were piled everywhere until the whole family was there and/or awake?!?! Distractions of donuts and cookies only lasted so long. Once we finally got started opening, it was a long slow process, and we had to, get this...take a break so the ham could go in the oven. Then we opened and opened more. Somewhere in there, W and Bubba went upstairs for a nap, I crashed on the couch and dinner got all ready and put together. Heh. THEN, after dinner was cleaned up, we started in on the stockings. I am totally not kidding. It was an entire day affair, with some people leaving to go do whatever, and others arriving later.
As if that wasn't enough excitement W and I had to get the car loaded all back up. After getting Bubba bathed and reluctantly into bed for the night, we started in trying to get the immense piles of stuff back into my car. Amazingly it all fit.
Leaving for the morning wasn't too dramatic, but things went downhill. We had to go to Sears to return/exchange our gift of a portable DVD player, because the wrong thing was in the box. It took them an HOUR to sort all that out, and we had promised to stop at Chippy and Jan's for breakfast. Ugh. I hate getting out of there behind schedule. I didn't want to spend all day in the car and get home in time for bed, but that is exactly what happened. Granted, breakfast was great, and they loaded us up with ham sammiches for the trip home, but still. We didn't hit the highway until 11:30, and I wanted on the road by 9.
I started out the driving, hoping to be useful before I got to tired to help. HAHAHAHAHA! I drove until about 3:30, or so, we had stopped a few times for gas/pee breaks/windshield wipers. And I drove all through the mountains during SNOW!!! Bubba got to see snow, but not play, cause there really wasn't much. W ended up with a migraine, because he chose to take over driving through the worst traffic. He made about 3 hours, and I was back behind the wheel. Keep in mind, until our trip up in October, I have NEVER participated in driving on our trips ANYWHERE and we've been to and from the beach at least a dozen times. So not only did I drive, I about drove the whole fricking way home. Now I know why I prefer to be a passenger and sleep if I want to. I was so worn out by the time we finally made it home. But I am very proud of myself for making it, and hope I haven't ruined it by having to do it all the time now.
So that's it. Lots of good gifts were given and received, lots of good times with family, way too much good food was consumed.
Best gift: the portable DVD player. Bubba was entertained the entire way home. Cars, Curious George, Thomas the Train, and Cars again. Had a nap in the middle when we told him the player needed a break.
Other notable gifts: A bunch of the music/DVD's I had on my wish list; ink for the printer; cowboy boots *which technically haven't arrived yet, but we picked them out and are waiting for shipping*; chocolate; toe socks; and I got FOUR loofahs. hahahah, guess I'm stinky or something.
Bubba's haul included FOUR remote control vehicles, three of which are rather large construction trucks. He got oodles of Cars stuff, matchbox cars, some clothes, movies, a Leapfrog system with educational games *whee* and the biggest, a FULL kitchen playset. I'm not talking about just fake food and plates, but the actual kitchen thing. Grammy had it shipped to our house because we wouldn't have been able to get it home otherwise. W had that all set up by the time we got home last nite, and then he opened the rest of the gifts we didn't take up with us, a mix of stuff from us and Santa.
Oh yeah, K is somewhat on the mend. They are waking her up for brief periods, but she can't talk, still has tubes down her throat. She is improving slowly and I want to thank all of you that have added her to your prayers. She is not out of the woods yet, but things are NOT looking as grim as they were. I hate that she had to spend Christmas in the hospital, in almost a full coma, but if she pulls through, it won't matter all that much.
Sorry this got so long. I haven't posted in a week, sooooo. Both bosses are out of town the rest of the year, so I'm doing catch up stuff, and the list of crap one of them called in with for me to do yesterday. So basically, I'm goofing off as much as possible. I'll post some pics in a bit from the new camera. Still haven't picked up a memory stick, but soon.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and that the new year is better than ever. I need to talk about W's appointment last Monday, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of it.
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