december, 2005
december 15
so, we're back. back to christmas chaos. we have 13 people staying here for christmas so we've been busy counting chairs, tables, beds and bedding. it's going to be crazy but lots and lots of fun. sascha has taken next week off work and i get 2 weeks off at christmas so we'll both be off for 2.5 weeks. i can't wait.
florida? the holiday was fantastic. disney was wonderful as always and it was so good to see my mum, dad and kellie at last. we all had a great time. the journeys themselves were anything but great...
the trip there was the second worst of my life and the trip back most definitely the very worst. they included a lot of stress, vomitting, flight changes [including an additional flight on the way back because we got bumped from our 2nd flight], excessive security screening and rushing. aly was ill on the way there; toby was very violently ill on the way back. as sascha pointed out: "at least you didn't get a face full of it"! that'll be another few additional months of therapy for me then! it's not as if things went much better for my parents or kellie. on the way there, kellie got held in immigration for 3 hrs or so while they tried to figure out how to take her green card off her [which she really just wanted to hand to them and leave]. naturally her luggage got misplaced during those 3 hrs. my parents had to make a delightfully unexpected landing in newfoundland on the way home for a medical emergency onboard.
wow, that was a lot of complaining for someone who's just been on vacation for 9 days! disney itself just keeps getting better and better as the children get older. i finally got to see disney snow for the first time [i've now been at christmas 3 times and missed it every other time somehow]. the children were at a great age. we only rented strollers every now and again - especially when we were making use of the extra magic hours for disney resort guests when the park would stay open until 12am. toby adjusted really well to the new schedule - he would have been happy sleeping in until 11.30 every day if we'd let him; aly less so, which meant we didn't usually stay until the parks closed.
aly loved the parades. toby's favourite thing was a stunt show with many exploding cars. i've never seen him so excited when trying to explain it [i got the short straw and had to take aly to watch a beauty and the beast show instead!] we all really loved test track at epcot and went on it 3 times. my favourite is still the tower of terror - toby took the plunge on there once again.
it's been a strange week at work - we had 6 sessions of breakfast with santa [which was handy because i really needed santa to sign some cheques for me]. tomorrow i'm only doing a half day and it should be a quiet one.
right, enough for now - there are presents to wrap, lights to put up, 5 teacher gifts to sort out etc. etc.
december 1
collecting leaves
it's D-Day tomorrow. disney here we come! now if only i didn't have 3 days of work to squeeze in before we leave.
did i mention that the fog cleared at last. it's been replaced by sleet and snow with the odd hint of rain? it's a positive weather-smorgasbord around here. florida seems more appealing by the second
aly passed her swim class which makes her something like a 'sunfish' instead of a 'salamander'. only trouble is that they're back in different levels again which is a bit of a drag when you're as lazy as i am.
i had a fascinating chat in the car yesterday about our family. toby starts with: "mommy, when are we going to buy a new baby?". aly: "yeah, toby wants a baby brother and i want a baby sister". well it's good they've got it all figured out then. i should have told them we couldn't afford to go to disneyworld if we bought a new baby - that might have talked them out of it. as it was there was no convincing them. oh well, it beats the political discussion in the car the previous day and the religious discussion the day before. being a parent makes my brain ache.
santa and his reindeers by aly
right, i'm off to pack. i'll update again when we're back.
back home