Home for the holidays

Well, I survived the Thanksgiving holiday. But, I must say I needed a vacation from my vacation. Thanksgiving Break started with packing clean clothes, dirty clothes, electronics to keep everyone occupied during the drive to Arkansas, and food. My wonderful children lost the car adapter for the DVD player, so I had to charge the battery. It took eight hours to charge the battery and it went dead after only two hours, so I had to listen to fighting, bickering and whining for the duration of the trip. I tried to tune them out as I sang along on with the music from my MP3 player, but they refused to let me enjoy. I finally had to stop because all I heard at one point were shouts of MAMA!

Well, we arrived in Arkansas early Wednesday afternoon and they got their bikes out and asked everyone about a million times when my sister and her family would arrive. They got there about two hours later and the fun began. As they played in my mom's store, it sounded like a group of fifty kids-- there were only five of them. The noise level continued throughout the entire stay and thankfully I had a new supply of Exedrin.

Thanksgiving Day found me at the table of three different families. Since my mom was taking forever (sounds like something DQ would say), I called a friend of the family and LP and I walked over and enjoyed a wonderful meal. We had smoked ham, fried turkey, greens, potato salad, dressing and a few more things I can't think of. We walked back to my mom's where I tried the dressing with cranberry sauce...pretty good. Later that evening, I stopped by a girlfriend's place and tried the cheesecake, it was so good I went by later that night to get another slice. I really overate, but hey, Thanksgiving only comes once a year.

Friday-- picture day. We dressed the kid in black and white and decided to take them the park for pictures. The park is decorated with Christmas lights and such and made an attractive background. The kids were excited, well, we thought they were. LP said she couldn't look at us or smile because the sun was in her eyes. We tried to move them to another spot, but she refused to cooperate and by this time nephew #1 said the sun was in his eyes too. They started rubbing them and now they were red and watery. I think we managed to get a couple of pictures-- who knows! Maybe we should've just gone to Sears!

Saturday morning-- time to get ready for the Christmas parade. My mom wanted something to represent her business. She owns a small convenience store in town. Our float plans changed and our theme was "Cooking Up Holiday Fun." My sister bought aprons and chef hats for the five kiddos and my dad found old stove. We had a few hours to get everything decorated because thankfully, the time of parade was changed from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. The kids were very agreeable to the hats and aprons and they loved throwing out candy. In fact, I think a few people may have bruises from the candy hitting them. Our plan to end the domination worked...we won first place! The kids were exciting and so were the locals, finally someone else won. Can't wait until next year.

So, now I'm at home and after a much needed nap I have tons of clothes and gadgets to unpack. Only four more weeks to Winter Break. Well, at least it's about three weeks long and maybe I can get a much needed vacation.