Christmas 2009

Grandma (GG) opening gift from Cooks

Jessie helping GG open her electric lap throw

Kids with PEZ from Cooks

This years "famous" socks from Jim

Chocolate orange from Cooks

GG with books from Cooks

Jerky from Cooks

Jenny with Chocolate Orange

GG opening sandart from kids.

We started our Christmas season with our traditional trip to the zoo for the Electric Critters. Chris and Rachel joined us and everyone loved walking around looking at all the lights as usual. It's always cold so this year we got smart and brought hot chocolate to drink while we walked. Jessie wanted to go back to the zoo she loved it so much but it's too expensive to do twice so we settled for walking the River Walk and looking at those Christmas lights. That was a lot of fun too (and free). The kids were a little disappointed that we didn't do the boat ride with Santa this year but we had already seen all the lights while walking and we didn't want to spend the money. Maybe next year. Next was our annual trip to the mall to visit with Santa and mail their letters. We walked around for awhile and Brandon played games in the arcade while Mom took Jessie on the little rides they have. Scott and I did a little shopping while mom watched the kids in the play area. Then we ate dinner at Subway. Last year Grandma went with us but this year she already had plans to go out with a group from the Towers to look at Christmas lights in the van. She really enjoyed that.

Christmas Eve we went to Chris' house (as is our fairly new tradition) and ordered pizza. He cooked chicken wings and made breadsticks and sauce and cookies to go with it (he's quite the male version of Martha Stewart) and then we had hot chocolate later in the evening. We opened some gifts then. We like to open the gifts that Brandon buys at his school Santa shop and the things that Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim send us on Christmas Eve so we can really spend time looking at them when it's not so hectic. The socks and poem Jim sends to dad need special attention. Brandon bought Jessie some lipgloss in the shape of the word LOVE. You would have thought he gave her diamonds the way she carried on and thanked him and kissed him. He gave Scott a sports mug that says DAD on it, me a pin that says MOM and is heartshaped, mom a bookmark with a heart and beads on it, and dad an ornament that says, "I love Grandpa" on it. They were having problems keeping a good supply of items to shop for this year in the Santa Shop so he and Jessie ended up making sandart vases for eveyone else. Jessie got it into her head that she had to give Santa a gift too and kept wanting to buy him a gift at the Santa Shop, but she settled for "writing" on a Christmas card and leaving that out for him on Christmas Eve along with the cookies and milk.

Christmas day won't go down in our memories as one of the best we've had but it was still nice. First Brandon's gift from Santa was a metal detector and it didn't work right. Then Chris had car trouble and they were late getting here. Scott wasn't feeling well (more on that in a minute), Chris forgot my gift and one of Rachel's, grandma (GG) was still tired from the Christmas Eve party, and we just couldn't seem to get organized. Inspite of all that, we still had a nice dinner and a nice day.

To elaborate more on Brandon's Santa gift, mom and I ran out the next day to try to replace it and the plan was to have Brandon write a letter to Santa to let him know it was broken and then Santa would make a special trip to drop off a new one, but they were out of them so dad had a metal detector he hadn't used in years and he cleaned that up and we had Brandon write the note and Santa delivered the "new" one with a note that he felt so bad that the other one was broken that he gave him an even better one, but this metal detector was very special to him so he needed to take really good care of it (since it is more expensive we wanted him to be more careful). Brandon was so excited and assumed that meant the metal detector belonged to Santa and he was giving him his own instead of making a new one. That's kind of true. Aren't grandpas really Santa anyway? He loves it and is very happy.

Now our latest medical issue, Scott. He had gone to the doctor a couple of weeks ago suspecting he might have a bladder infection but his brilliant doctor didn't put him on antibiotics and it ended up getting worse. I ended up taking him to emergency room the day after Christmas and he has a very large kidney stone and an infection, which probably wouldn't have happened if he had gotten the antibiotics in the beginning. He was supposed to have an ultrasound on Monday that would break it up but it was too close to the bladder so they sent him to the hospital for same day surgery to put in a stent. So he is still in pain and trying to pass it and is taking a bunch of different kinds of medicines and has to go back next Monday to see if all is well. I'm the only one that hasn't had surgery recently so I sure hope it stays that way. We're REALLY hoping 2010 will be a better year. Hope everyone reading this blog has a wonderful New Year.