Christmas 2013

Christmas this year was promising. We were all fighting off head colds but nothing too severe and I was cautiously optimistic that we would not have a repeat of last year’s stomach bug. We had the Bannings and Jamma over for a very casual Christmas Eve and all went well. I had such a nice time that I completely forgot to get out my camera, so you’ll just have to trust me.

The kids basically put themselves to bed so as to encourage Santa’s arrival. He came and dropped off a boat load of goodies.

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We were all ready for Christmas morning.

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The boys had a good time opening all their stuff.

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After a few hours of relaxing, we got ready for our surprise for the boys. We told them we were headed out to Jamma’s house, but really we had booked a night at the Legoland Hotel. We had made these last minute reservations because a) we’ve been meaning to take the boys there and we’re running out of time for it to be relatively close and b) we were having Christmas with the rest of the Moisions on the day after Christmas, so this gave us something to do on Christmas Day and got us almost all the way to San Diego.

The best laid plans … We got there fine, the boys were flabbergasted and took a while to even realize what we were doing. We dropped our stuff at the hotel; the kids enjoyed some in-house LEGOs while we checked in.

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Then we moved on to the park.

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The first thing they wanted to do was drive the cars.

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Ezra was too far away for a good photo. That driver on the farthest right is him.

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We saw Miniland and a model of San Francisco. The boys were unimpressed at its proximity to our new home.

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While we were at the park I started to not feel so good. In fact, I told Bruce I was going to go back to the hotel but then had to sit down as a wave of nausea hit me. I made it back to the hotel without a moment to spare and spent pretty much the rest of the trip in bed. About 8:00 pm Finn, laying down in their super cool pirate bunk beds …

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… said his tummy hurt. We prepared for the worst, separated the sickies from the well, and Finn and I hunkered down. About 10:00 pm our fears were realized. About 11:00 pm housekeeping came to take mercy on us (and our room) and then we were able to get some rest.

Kids are remarkably resilient though, and by morning he felt fine. Bruce took the boys for breakfast and back to Legoland for early entry. They had lots of fun before returning to collect me at 11:00. We then drove to Bill and Therese’s house to drop of all the Christmas gifts and visit briefly with everyone before heading home.

I had another miserable day, Ezra picked up the bug a few days later, and then Bruce was flattened the day after that. So, our Sickmas lasted from Christmas to New Years but I think we’re all on the mend now. The kids are back in school and we are in the midst of preparing to move. Happy 2014!

Miscellaneous November/December 2013

I have a few things that just don’t fit into any other post so I’m going to dump them all here. With all that’s been going on, I haven’t been taking very many pictures but I pulled some off my phone recently.

Here’s Jake and Ezra at Bob and Vanessa’s house. We were there after Thomas’s birthday party and the house was crazy-full of boys (10 of them!). I just loved this relatively quiet moment amid the madness.

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Here’s one from the archery class I took the boys to while Bruce was flying up for his Google interview.

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And here’s the Google swag he brought back.

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Ezra’s been spending a lot of time on the monkey bars at school so I got a picture one day.

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And a video.

We went to the beach with the Bannings after Thanksgiving and had a wonderful relaxing time. I took no pictures except this one of all three of my boys on the pier.

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Finn’s soccer season finished up in November. It was a bit of a bust — the last game was canceled — but there was an end-of-season party. Finn got the “Best Attitude” award from his coach.

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Someone left us a St. Nicholas present in the Library with a nice note. And chocolate, which the boys thoroughly enjoyed.

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And lastly, I’ve had some fabulous skies during my walks these last few months. It makes getting up at 5:00 so much better when the sky is so beautiful.

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