Happy Holidays

It's been a while since I posted, mainly because my parents arrived last Saturday and stayed until just this morning (Saturday, December 27th). We so enjoyed their visit, but between the weather and my latest girlie remedy we were stuck in the house for the most part.

The weather had been horrendous and we worried about Mom and Dad's travel last weekend. For the preceeding 5 days we had heard about how the "newest system" would "arrive on Sunday". But on Friday afternoon the meteorologist moved the timeframe up to Saturday. Mom and Dad had initially intended on meandering up on Sunday and arriving on Monday, but changed the date to Saturday with the hope of beating the Sunday storm. I phoned as soon as I heard the new forecast, but Mom and Dad were celebrating Christmas with my sister and her family that day so were too distracted to comprehend what I was trying to tell them. So, up they drove on Saturday, hitting the major part of the storm just 20 miles south of Portland.

It took my parents 5-1/2 hours to drive what normally takes 2-1/2 hours because of the massive amounts of snow and ice just swamping the roadways. Wow!!! Needless to say, they were exhausted after their extremely long day. They had woke up around 4:30am, left the house around 5:00am, stopped at my aunts house in Longview for about 40 minutes and arrived here around 10:30pm... What a day!

The kids were just thrilled to see Nana and Papa! They were completely surprised when they came downstairs and found Nana relaxing on the couch. C shadowed Nana for the entire week! My mom, of course, loved every minute of it.

Then came the day for Santa to show up... I kept signing to C that Santa would visit that night and would bring toys. Every time I told her she would get excited all over again. We forgot to have the kids leave out the cookies and milk, but Daddy did it for them. They didn't even notice when they woke up. Oh well. Too busy checking out their gifts, I guess! lol.

M and C had a blast opening their Christmas gifts. Even mom enjoyed herself. She got a new laptop, which my dad had shipped to our house (he gave me a secret code phrase so that I would know when to bring it out, but I forgot and made up my own: "The purple whale spout green algae in the gray grass..." lol). M and C have not put down their new Nintendo DS games (they each got their own). But Mom and I stole them as soon as the kids put them down so we could play "Brainage", which I bought for myself. Hmmm... I may not get any work done around the house... I'm having too much fun with it!

The weather remainded cold and blustery during Mom's and Dad's entire visit this week. But, I think everyone enjoyed the awesome white Christmas. It was a very nice and unique treat for the Seattle area and us!

So, I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas and will have an awesome New Year. And I sincerely hope the coming year is a peaceful and happy one for all.