Christmas 2008

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It feels a little like a whirlwind Christmas this year. Landon and Tracy were here from Washington for a week, but I'm sure it didn't feel much like a vacation to them, as busy as they were. Lain came up from Phoenix with Shay and Kevin and got here Christmas morning WAY before anyone was awake! Damian got here on Christmas Eve but wasn't able to get his kids until 10:30am on Christmas morning. Landon and Tracy had Christmas on Christmas Eve at Tracy's mom's house and them came over the next morning. So, after everyone got here and settled down, we opened presents. I was sneaky this year and wrapped each of the grandkids gifts in one box so they thought they were being cheated to only get one gift each. I'm sure each of them will think the best present they got was a box of MORE presents! The rest of the day was full of playing games, eating, cleaning up messes and just generally having a great time.

We had a couple of lights out in the fan so we had a group effort to get some new bulbs in there. Lain finally volunteered to climb the ladder but wasn't able to get the bulb unscrewed so we just lived with a dimmer light.



Jocelynn, Savannah and Jacob

Tracy got a vegetarian cook book for Christmas. This was Landon's reaction to it:

Lain opened her cuddle quilt, but I had a feeling she wouldn't like it.. uh.. maybe because it's ugly. I'm going to make her a different one.

Jocelynn

Shayla

Savannah

Landon and Tracy opened their quilt. Even though Tracy knew about it, I still think it was a surprise for them. They're pretty excited about it and the prospect of designing their bedroom around it.

Savannah

My parents were supposed to be here on Christmas day this year, but Dad had to go to the hospital with a dangerously low sodium level and much confusion and disorientation. He ended up being there for over a week until they got his sodium levels up and he felt ok again. He is still walking with a walker just for security, but he is much better. We're just sad that he missed Christmas with everyone.

On Saturday, my sisters and their families were supposed to come up for dinner and our gift exchange, but everyone decided it would be better if we went to Phoenix instead so we could be closer to Dad in the hospital. So, I went down on Friday and everyone else came down on Saturday and we had a nice dinner, that Alan put together, at Mom's house. We had a fun gift exchange after all the grandkids opened their gifts from my Mom.

So.. it's over and everything is pretty much back to normal. Dad is good and my house is devoid of Christmas crap. We're ready for the new year to begin which happens today. We're opening the office again today and I've already gotten a phone call saying that I need to come in early because there were so many messages on the answering machine asking if patients can come in today. And... so it begins...