Well, we listened to the weather reports and decided that it would be better to go back home on Christmas Day. That was the only day that was supposed to be clear. I worked Christmas Eve day. We were low in census, so we were able to "call off" people. It goes by seniority. I was the most senior staff member (also in charge)...I took the last four hours off. It felt a little weird being in charge and sending myself home, but we really needed to get packed up if we were going to leave in decent time on Christmas Day.
Caleb had been looking longingly at the gifts that we put under the tree for like a week before Christmas. I kept telling him that those were for everyone that we were giving gifts too and that he'd get his presents on Christmas. Christmas morning Abby decided she needed to wake up at 430 AM! It took an hour to get her back to sleep. Of course, we couldn't fall asleep after that. Caleb woke up around 615. The first thing he said was "Mom, I think there are presents under the tree!" We got up, got dressed, ate breakfast and opened gifts. That went really fast since Caleb just did one after another. We packed up our final things....the new toys that Caleb got, etc. And hopped in the van to go to my uncle's house in Illinois. So, lunch at my uncle's house and more gift opening that day.
Friday we had "off" since it was originally going to be our travel day. The fog was HORRIBLE. I'm glad we came down the day before.
Saturday, we opened gifts with my parents and brother and sister-in-law. Saturday afternoon (after the kids went to nap), I ran into town to see my friends from high school. We try to get together around Christmas and exchange something small. In years past, we had done ornaments. This year we exchanged Christmas socks. :) You can never have too many socks! Saturday night we went to my grandparents' house. I have a pretty big extended family that tries to get together. There were twenty-three people there, counting the kiddos. I'd call it controlled chaos.
Sunday, we packed up the van and went to Brent's parents' house. It's only about a fifteen minute drive from my parents', so it's nice to be able to see everyone in one trip! Again, we opened gifts and visited with everyone. This was probably the most emotional day for us. It was the first Christmas without Brent's grand-dad. Pretty much everything reminded us of him. There were lots of tears, but lots of smiles too.
We left after supper time to drive back to Wisconsin. We got back in time to get the kids to bed and unload. Brent and I were both supposed to work today, so we wanted to get to sleep as fast as possible.
This morning, we were both up and eating breakfast when the phone rang. It was work. I got called off again!! Or...I should say I got offered the first eight hours off. I have a lot of benefit time still since I never requested vacation time this year. I was on maternity leave when we had to turn in our requests, and I completely forgot. (we always have to turn in our requests by Nov. 15 the year before) I couldn't go back to sleep....so I started unpacking, etc. I helped get the kids off to daycare...and ran errands. I got a ton done, and then when I called work, they said I could have the last four hours off too! Boy, did I need that. It was a really good day off!
I didn't post many pictures this time because I took a couple hundred of them. I uploaded a little over a hundred to my picture page...click on the link on the left of the blog. :)
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