Bright and early at 5:55, I awakened to my son emptying the dishwasher. 15 minutes later I finally pulled myself out of bed and got going. Chores done, lunches packed, family scripture and prayer, and breakfast served, the boys headed out the door with Dad at 7:20. Luckily the girls have the most sense and slept in until 7:30. School and work is officially back in session.
We have had a fabulous Christmas break. It started off with a bang and all the kids except Tom came down with fevers at the start of the week of Christmas. It made me thankful that I had not made any Christmas party plans that week and angry that I had to reschedule the girls' eye specialist appointment for another 2 months in the future.
Christmas Eve we got together with friends for dinner and the nativity reenactment. After having to recast Mary with a less hormonal substitute, we had a very enjoyable evening with some great music-the dad of the family is a great pianist. Before bed we opened our Christmas jammies, that I had spent the last few days hurriedly sewing. Good thing they got them because I am not sure that anything else was worn for most of the next week.
Christmas day was spent lounging, eating, unwrapping gifts, and wii-ing- our most favorite gift for Christmas. The next day our arms were sore and tired from lots of wii golf and tennis. I never thought that I would give in to my family purchasing a game system but... so far it has been fun. We got to enjoy unlimited hours over the next week in front of the TV playing and now that school is back in session, I hope that I don't live to regret it.
The other highlight of our Christmas break was New Year's Eve. We celebrated Tom's birthday by going to the snow. (He loves to tell us that because he was born in Minnesota in the winter, he is a snow person. However, the kid was two when we moved away so what does he know about living in -20 degree weather for a week.) So after spending all morning gathering coats, hot chocolate, food, candy, drinks, hats, gloves, cameras, sleds and ...Dave and I were ready to go back to bed but we loaded up the car and drove 2 hours to find snow in California. It was a gorgeous day with warm temps that made the wet snow clothes so much more bearable. The kids all had a lot of fun and didn't complain much at all. We had to stop for dinner though so we let Tom choose one of the restaurants in the small town. He decided on Italian. As we got out of the car in our sweats and rain boots, to haul 6 kids for dinner I knew immediately that we must find a new place. They had tablecloths and stemmed glasses on the table preset for dinner service. So the hostess recommended another restaurant up the road. It was perfect. The food was excellent and the kids were tolerably good. The last time they had eaten anything other than fast food in a restaurant was probably more than 3 years ago. But the best was when they brought out a piece of pie for Tom and sang him Happy birthday. He felt so special.
We came home and watched the DVD I had found at Walmart-The Apple Dumpling Gang 1 and 2. The boys laughed their way to midnight and Mom and Dad crashed on the couch. What a great way to end 2009!
Friday was spent celebrating Tom's birthday once again this time complete with a Minnesota cake. And Saturday was spent catching up on all the work that had been neglected for the last 2 weeks.
So now once again we are back to school and schedules. 2010 Here we come!
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