Last Stop!

We made the last stop on our Christmas Marathon for 2008. We finally made it to York to visit Pap and Nana Pat. (If you missed it, we had to postpone earlier in the month due to illness.) The kids were thrilled to finally make the trip. Unfortunately, we had to go without Gary since he was scheduled to work from home that day.

As always, we were spoiled by Pap and Nana Pat. They had great food and wonderful gifts for us. The girls got great clothes, books and other exciting "girly things". Collin and Danny got, of course, some more Legos, Nerf guns and bullets (I think we can now have a full fledged WW III at our house should you decide that you need to participate!) and some cool books. Nathan, being the cool almost teen, got some video games for the PS2, books, and clothes. I have to admit, I am thrilled that all of the kids love to read and are excited to get new books. I know that some kids don't, but my kids LOVE books! As for Gary and I, we got a new flat screen computer monitor! I am using it now, and it is GREAT! What a difference a large, clear screen makes! Who knew?!? I can't imagine what it would be like to have a large screen tv this clear, but that's for another day. We also, as a family, received some great gift certificates for movies, dinner, Lowes, Target, and several other places. Like I said, we are totally spoiled!

Oh, and a few comments about this picture of Nathan and Nana Pat. One, Nate's around the food again! Two, thank God there is a haircut scheduled for Saturday! Three, Oh my, Nathan is a lot taller than Nana! He doesn't even have shoes on!

As much fun as Christmas is, I am really glad to be done with it. Between illness and all of the family stops, almost stops and rescheduled stops, it seems like Christmas was the whole month of December this year. And, my house looks like Santa's Workshop threw up (maybe it got the stomach flu from us this year?) all over the place! I will be ready to put the decorations away in a few days and get back to the normal routine. I think we have been across the bridge more in the last 3 weeks than we have the last 3 months! I'm not complaining, I have loved seeing everyone, but all good fun must come to an end, and I'm at that end!

I would like to take a moment and refocus the kids on the true meaning of Christmas. Why we got so many great gifts and just how blessed we are as a family. So, that being said, I think that we will each take a bag and find some old, gently used things that we can donate before all of the new stuff finds homes in the kids' rooms. It's a great thought...we'll see just what gets done!