Holiday Recap

Adam wades through the gifts at my Mom's

Derek shows off his new toys

My mom (Nini) watching everyone open presents

Adam writes a note to Santa and puts out some cookies and carrots (for the reindeer) after we returned from my Mom's late Christmas eve

The boys running downstairs on Christmas morning

Well, we're back from the holidays. We were all off from the Friday before Christmas until after the new year. We have that "we've done a lot, but accomplished little" feeling. We're always irritated that things are in such a rush that we don't have time to fully engross ourselves in the holiday season. We've realized that it's important to have as many days off from work as possible before Christmas in order to decompress and get in the holiday spirit. This year we had several days off before Christmas and it was nice. Next year will be even better when Christmas falls on Thursday.

We did a lot of shopping online, but got out into the "real" world a little for some shopping as well. It wasn't too bad and it does feel more like the holidays as long as it's not too much of a zoo.

My sister Katie came up from Louisiana. We all enjoyed catching up with her. We also got to see my sister-in-law's mother, Judy, from Oklahoma. She's always so nice and is kind of like another grandparent to the the boys in that she always brings presents for them. Katie and Judy joined us for a nice big family dinner out at Ippolito's with my dad.

It was nice to catch up with friends and family. My brother and his wife, Laine, took the boys to see "Enchanted" for their annual holiday movie outing. They were originally going to see one of the other holiday movies, but after I showed Derek the "Rotten Tomatoes" review site where those other movies got bad reviews, he decided on "Enchanted". Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

We did the usual Christmas with my Mom, then our immediate family, then Helen's family, and then my Dad. By the end, we were "done" - put a fork in us. Unfortunately, we had loads of "stuff" to deal with. It took a couple days to find the floor.

Derek got a nice skateboard, 2 remote control dragon fly's, a few Lego sets, Stratego, Mad Science, and BattleGround board games, laser tag, Nerf crossbow, a pocket knife, a Calvin & Hobbes book, clothes, Mad Libs, Rubick's Cube, Electronic Sudoku, and more. He was obsessed with putting together the Lego sets. So much so that he woke up early on Christmas morning and quietly worked on the City Harbor set, that he had gotten at my Mom's the night before, in his room without even bothering anyone else to go downstairs and see what Santa had brought.

Derek woke up early the day after Christmas to whittle with his new pocket knife that he got from Uncle Mike and Aunt Chris. He came upstairs to wake us and had a band-aid on his finger, but was quick to reassure us that it was just a little cut. He initially had a lot of trouble opening and closing the knife and was thinking about returning it for another knife, but with a couple days of practice he's got it mastered now.

Derek has also spent a lot of time riding his skateboard. He's trying to work on his "ollie", which he informs us is the basic skating trick.

Adam got an air hockey\foosball\pool\etc 16 game activity table, knights and army men, GI Joe's, Lego's, a WWF (wrestling) game from Uncle Paul and Aunt Agatha with all the hokey props like breakable folding table and chairs (Adam loves it), Piratology book, Pirate treasure chest, Nerf "Long Shot" gun, Power Ranger walky talky's, books, board games, clothes, and more. But he loves Derek's skateboard and doesn't know why Santa didn't bring him one. He's grown tired of people telling him that he might get one for his birthday or next Christmas.

The boys and I had fun assembling Adam's new activity table and all the kids on the street have been over at one time or another to play with it. The kids seem to run around in groups of 3 or 4 and when they descend on your house you know you're in for some cleanup afterwards. It seems that Adam and his friends can trash the house in about 20 minutes, but it takes Adam hours to clean up. He's resistant to our suggestion of playing with one thing at a time.

We finally got some rain. Since we've been in such a terrible drought, nobody seemed to mind the wet holdidays. The rain did let up several days and I got to play quite a bit of tennis. Helen and I also worked on a number of home projects. We cleaned the carpets, repainted the downstairs bathroom, and re-caulked the boy's bathroom among other things. It's always a bonus when you can make progress against all those "to-do" items. It seems like we never can during our regular work weeks.

Helen was not happy at first about having to go back to school at the end of the week after New Year's. But after the short week, she changed her mind and thought it was a nice way to ease back into things.

Happy 2008 to everyone!