The Long Break Ends

Christmas break was amazing!  Here are 12 highlights:

1 - My parents were in town for 2 weeks.  
SUPER fun.  They are invited back every year.  (They say they might rotate through my siblings.  That means they'll only make it back here every 7th Christmas.  I have too many siblings!)  Honestly, they were the best Christmas visitors ever.  They brought with them no expectations or demands, only love and help.  My parents are amazing.

The morning my Mom arrived.

They also took us to Costco and bought us a ton of food.  They didn't have to do that, and we didn't "need" it, but it was super, super appreciated.  Every time I go downstairs to our food storage room, I feel so much gratitude - it's filled to the brim.

2 - Rob and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. 
Fun story about this.  Rob and I decided to get a fancy hotel room this time.  We haven't done that for several years, preferring to stay home and ship the kids out.  This was a financial move as well as a we-don't-really-like-bed-bugs move.  But the bed bug scare has died down, and my parents were at our house, too, so a hotel it was.  We brought in dinner so we could spend more on the room we really wanted, and when we got there I knew we'd made the right call.  The room was perfect!  Rob had everything planned out, and for a man who plans nothing, I was blown away.  We enjoyed the room for 2 hours and then there it was:  a bed bug crawling across the sheets.

So!  We captured it in a plastic bag, packed up all our stuff, went to the front desk and got our money back, and then went out to dinner and a movie before heading home.  I figure this was a win all the way around.  The hotel room was gorgeous AND FREE, we got dinner and a movie, and we slept in our own comfortable bed.

But it may be a while yet before we check into another Cincinnati hotel.

3 - A Special Gift.
One of the best Christmas gifts I received was from one of my teachers.  He gave us the week off before Christmas, and Quizzes 1 and 2 and the Midterm were on-line that week.  Originally those tests were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, but he sent out an e-mail the day before they were to open and announced that he was extending the deadline.  I glanced at the new dates and times and felt relieved because our week was pretty busy (that was the week of our anniversary, among other things).

Anyways, I went to another class on Thursday night and while I was sitting there, I thought, "Oh, I need to remember to take those tests."  I got home, chatted with my parents, and then right before I went to bed around midnight, I checked on-line to remind myself about the Friday night 11 p.m. deadline.  Turns out I was wrong.  The deadline wasn't Friday at 11 p.m.  It was THURSDAY at 11 p.m.  ...  Yeah.  ...  I had just missed out on 200 points.  There are only 1,000 for the whole class, and it's a 7-point grading scale, so that's an automatic C, even if I were to get 100% on everything else.

Needless to say, I didn't fall asleep easily that night.  I had sent an e-mail to my teacher asking if I could still take the quizzes and midterm.  And the gift:  He let me!  So Christmas Eve I took the tests (the whole thing took me just under 20 minutes), and then I sent an e-mail to my teacher saying Merry Christmas and Thank you SO MUCH!

4 - Rob and his Copter
I bought Rob a remote-controlled helicopter for Christmas.  I bought it months ago and didn't tell him what it was.  They aren't that expensive, but they're really, really fun.

Anyways, 2 fun stories connected to this.  First, when Rob opened it he said, "That's the gift I really wanted."  He said he didn't tell me because he "knew" I hadn't gotten him one, and he didn't want to make me feel bad for purchasing something else.  How many times is that going to happen, eh?  Buying the perfect gift without even knowing it.

Second fun story:  Rob broke his helicopter on Christmas day.  Yep.  He flew it and flew it and flew it and then he came upstairs and said, "It broke."  This is the story Rob told about how the helicopter broke.  "I was letting Teancom fly it.  I don't blame it on Teancom, though.  He was flying it and it landed really hard."  I was surprised that this had broken his copter, since I'd seen Rob fly it, and he wasn't gentle with it.  About 5 minutes later Rob said, "It tipped over when it landed and I tried to fly it while it was laying on its side."  I looked at him like he was stupid and said, "Why did you do that?"  And with the tone of a guilty 7-year-old boy, he said, "I wanted to see what would happen."  Uh huh.

I had anticipated the copter breaking eventually, so I had already purchased a replacement part set of commonly broken parts.  But the part that broke wasn't in that bag.  Turns out that most people think that flying the copter on its side is a bad idea.

The replacement part is on its way, though, along with a second copter.  He says that way we can both fly one.  For $25, why not.

5 - K'Nex building sets.  Fun, fun, fun.
We now have this set and this set and this set and a few other sets.  We love them. (Check out that first link and watch the video.  Awesome double roller coaster.)

6 - Showing up to church on Christmas morning in my new bath robe.
A member of the Bishopric dared me to wear my bath robe to church on Christmas morning.  Rob said, "That's not even a dare for Tamra."  I got lots of compliments on it.  And the Bishopric member looked me over and said, "Tamra, you're one in a million. ...  Thank goodness."

He says he's going to come up with a really good dare.  I said, "I do have limits," to which Rob added, "But not many."

 Here are the kids all ready for church.  I let Tank wear his new bath robe, too.  Skull and cross bones to church.  Ha!

7 - Getting together with friends and family.

Elijah getting a hug from Grandma after she opened his gift to her:  Q-tips.

Chatting with the fam.

Click on this picture to enlarge.  We decided to have all the kids pretend like they were screaming so that the one real screaming child in the bottom left wouldn't look so out of place.  Good times.

8 - Putting together a jigsaw puzzle with my Mom on Christmas day.  My dad helped, too!  (That never happens.  Turns out we make a pretty good team and he is now hired for all our future puzzle-making ventures.)

9 - Uninterrupted time with my Father.
Normally we get weeks with my mother and a day or two with my father, but this time he stayed for more than a week.  It was great to chat with him and go places with him and just generally have more time with him. 

10 - General Christmas Magic, including:
- Krohn's Conservatory (my mom has the pictures.  I forgot to steal them from her before she left).
- Seeing the kids SO EXCITED for Christmas.

- Telling Elijah the truth about Santa Claus.
- Christmas morning.

All of our stockings - Miciah and my dad have the same initials (MLT), which made for some fun games.

- Watching the kids play so well together - they're at such fantastic ages!

The kids were playing and suddenly they said, "Mom, take a picture.  We're Mary and Joseph holding baby Jesus."  Aww.

 11 - "And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost." 
And that obscure reference is all I'm going to say about that.

And last but certainly not least:
12 - It's now 2012!  
Whew!  I'm excited to stop writing 2011.  That was such an ugly year to write.  2012 is much prettier.

Though, having said that, 2011 was a fantastic year for our family.  I don't feel like a lot has "happened," but we've been happier than ever, and that's huge.  Thank you, 2011.  I look forward to an even better 2012!