Get ready for a mouthful, then. I apologize in advance to anyone on dial-up.
We started with Christmas at home. Major presents = A tricycle for Anya, and a sleeping bag for Ally.
They loved it. Ally slept in her sleeping bags in various places throughout the trip. It was great timing. The tricycle will hopefully be Anya's size in the spring. We'll see
At my dad's house, we re-claimed a baby doll that had been left at Thanksgiving. And Anya got one more. She was thrilled. 2 babies! Plus, we had brought one from home with us.
Sadly, she had an ear infection still. It started way back on the 13th, and she'd been on ear drops since then. Then she started to develop Ally's cough as well. We spent a lot of time in this mode.
So Christmas Eve, one of Darra's nurse friends took pity on us and called in an antibiotic. Should have gotten one for Ally too, because she coughed and hacked the whole trip. Oh well. Things were happy a lot of the time. As you would expect when you get to spend time with all the grandmas and grandpas you could ever want
Ally liked our new bath towels. She thought they were as soft as a lamb, so we had to spend some time getting them off her head and telling her we didn't want to play Mary Had a Little Lamb. That game seemed suspiciously like Ally's a puppy. Apparently, in Ally's head, lambs and puppies are pretty similar.
The real Christmas came, and Anya and Ally both helped be "Santa", delivering presents to their new owners, along with Nick and Matt (their cousins). It was quite the traffic jam, but they cleaned out the tree in no time. Everyone was warned to check Anya's deliveries before opening. She wasn't willing to wait for instructions on where to deliver them.
Ally got her second present that she had specifically asked for from Grandma Darra. A little pony tea party set. (And more ponies, and little people Christmas stuff, and 5 gazillion other things. "Santa" was generous)
Anya got a couple Little People sets that she played with constantly for the trip. She was constantly looking for her hohohos and her choo-choos. I think we now have more Little People than we originally packed up. And they are multicultural too! (and now I've got Mr Rogers in my head. dammit) (Of course, she also got another baby doll. and a package of cookies. She was in heaven)
And it just wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't complain about all those goddamn twistie ties. The first year Ally opened presents, we untied everything before we wrapped it. It took forever. It was a good idea in theory, but it sucked. We haven't done it again.
Ally got a neat rug to play ponies on. I never even knew they existed.
After Christmas, we went shopping (of course). I was completely jealous of Darra's camera, so we went to the camera shop to look. And I got a new camera for my birthday. (Yes, my birthday isn't til July. so what? I won't get a present then.) it had to be for my birthday, because she got me a graphics tablet for Christmas! Squeee!!
Anyway... I know have a neat little camera with 10X optical zoom. It's still a Point-and-shoot, because that's what I use it for. I want it to be portable. I'm just not ready for a DSLR yet.
We had a great time there. Thank you Darra! Next we headed for Rob's dad's house. but we had so much stuff we couldn't fit it all in the truck. We had to leave a big pile there. That night we had Christmas yet again. Another baby doll!
Ally unwrapped a Cabbage patch sprout doll and playset. She had a lot of fun telling Anya that she was too little to play with it playing with it.
of course, the next morning, the day we were going to be driving 4 5 hours north we awoke to this
It was a long drive
Yes, we had an extra passenger. Naomi ended up riding with us. That meant we left more stuff at Rob's dad's house. And the truck was still full. When we (finally) got there, the girls lost no time in "freshening up" by painting their nails.
Anya was too hungry for that though.
This was the view from our window.
And here's a shot of our room. There was a pull-out couch and we had a king size bed in the bedroom. There was a jacuzzi tub (that I didn't even get a chance to use) and even a washer and dryer. This is the way to vacation!
The kids even slept pretty well together on the couch.
Although Anya crashed out on our bed for nap once or twice
We went to the water parks in the evening and had a lot of fun, but I didn't get any good pictures, because I had a cheap little camera. And I didn't have much time to use it, because we were chasing 6 kids. lots of fun was had by all though!
We went out in the snow one day for tubing down a giant hill. Ally wasn't even scared. (The pink one near the top is Ally)
And then, of course, we had to come home. bleh. Another snowstorm. And I fell asleep for a half hour and woke to find out we were a half hour away fomr our exit in the wrong direction heading for Chicago instead of south. grrr. Another extra hour on the road. And then when we got home, Rob still had to drive an hour round trip to take Naomi home. He brought back still more Christmas presents, and Anya got another baby doll. She has spent the last weeks, lining them all up and moving them all around. They take turns being wrapped in blankets and then unceremoniously dropped when another baby has a sudden need for the blanket. Ally has spent much of the time begging someone to play with her. Didn't we buy all these toys so they would play by themselves? (ok, maybe not)
The weekend came and with it, brought Darra visiting with all the stuff we left at both Rob's dad's and her house. We had the house cleaned up before that point. Christmas strikes again.
But I got even. Christmas is finally over. (Except for the stockings that I forgot to take down before I packed everything away in the attic. doh!)
you still here? It was a long trip. Thanks for coming along with me :) (And all of you who were actually a part of it - We loved it!)
