Workinger Family Christmas-Almost

This year, we were really looking forward to going to Gary's sister, Sue's house the day after Christmas. Usually we don't get together for Christmas until sometime in February! Gary's parents are usually in Altoona at this time of year with their extended family and with everyone's schedule, it takes that long to get together. Anyway, Sue decided to have us over to celebrate the day after Christmas this year. And Gary's parents decided that they would be there. Yay, we would have a Workinger/Schaefer Family Christmas in December for the first time since I married Gary!

We had a lazy morning, I wrapped the gifts (ok, so I wasn't totally ready for the extended family Christmas), and we loaded up for the hour and a half ride to Aunt Sue's. Everyone was in a great mood, the weather was nice and warm, we had some Adventures in Odyssey to listen to, what could go wrong? Even the traffic was moving along without any problems.

There were no problems until about 14 minutes from Aunt Sue's house...

Those dreaded words from Claire...

"Momma, my tummy really, really hurts!"

Oh no, please, quick, where is the throw up bucket? GIVE IT TO CLAIRE, NOW!!! We travel with several of these in the van at all times because my kids have been known to get carsick. She was fine all morning! Surely she'll be fine for the last 15 minutes!

"Momma, it hurts a lot now...Oh, oh, bleck!!!!"

You guessed it. Ten minutes from Aunt Sue's house, Claire tosses her cookies. God bless her, she caught my stomach flu. I would guess that would be because Claire is always touching me, all of the time, no matter what. If I am sitting down, you can bet she is either on my lap or smack up against my side. She never had a chance-she sat on my lap the whole Christmas Eve service. She even likes to get in bed with me and snuggle and did so during my nap on Christmas day. The poor kid caught my flu because she just loves me so much she can't stay away from me! (Gary on the other hand, didn't get it. Hmmmmmm...what does that tell you?)

We had the shortest visit on record. Since we were so close, we continued on to drop off gifts and see Andrew's (our cousin) inflatables in the yard. He loves those things! Aunt Sue has 2 in the front yard, 3 in the back and one in the basement (that we didn't see). We didn't enter Aunt Sue's house, we didn't touch Andrew or Aunt Sue for a hug, we didn't even want to breath the outside air near their home. You can imagine just how disappointed the kids were. After all, it was just last weekend we had to cancel Family Christmas with Pap and Nanna Pat. It was a very long drive home.

Sorry Aunt Sue, Uncle Jer, Andrew, Grandmom and Pappy. I hope you had fun without us. Can we try it again next year?