The weather was perfect for the drive there and back. We couldn't have asked for more. Even while we were there it was nice.
We got to my mom's house in Tulsa on Saturday night. They are at the tail end of a huge remodel on the house so it was like coming to a new place. They totally redid the kitchen. Gorgeous! They made the living room larger, got a new flat screen tv, added on the deck (with the hot tub and an extra section for Greg's high-end grill), and added on a new master suite. The new master bath wasn't finished yet but it is going to be AWESOME! Jacuzzi tub. Jacuzzi shower/steamer---all tiled. I wish I had taken pictures but I'm sure my mom will send me some when they are finished with everything and I can blog about it all then. We did test out the hot tub that night. If Carl wasn't so frugal, I'm sure he'd buy one for our house.
On Sunday we got up and lounged around. Church didn't start until 1pm. It's nice going to church with my mom in Tulsa because we have some friends from college (my old roomate, in fact) that live in their ward. My friend Brenda's family lives there too. We found out that her dad is going to be on Wheel of Fortune on Tuesday night. Check it out!
After church we went back to wait for the festivities. Greg's daughter Sandy and her husband Joe and daughter Savannah came over for dinner. Before dinner my bum was hurting (leftover roller skating issues) so I asked my mom for some Aleve. None in the house. But, of course, she had something stronger. I took it. Bad idea. My bum felt GREAT! My head felt all in a fog and I was groggy and nauseated the rest of the evening. It saved me from eating too much dinner, though.
I did manage to snap some pics of the kids opening their presents. We went ahead and opened all their presents that night (except for the ones from Santa and their stocking).
As expected, Caleb was most interested in running around and "skating" on the bamboo floors.
He also spent a fair amount of time trying to steal Eva's presents from her.
I can't complain, though. During this whole trip Caleb was SO GOOD! So good that we kept commenting on how amazingly good he was being. He did what we said (most of the time---like any other 3 yr old) and didn't have a single meltdown during the whole trip. I'm so proud of him!
Carl and I got a Playstation 2 and a karaoke game for Christmas. It was a surprise. We had no idea this is what we were getting. It was SO FUN! We played that night. Here's a picture of my sister and Caleb singing a duet.
The kids went to sleep at a reasonable hour and then we weren't too far behind. Santa reads my blog and made sure that my Pirates of the Caribbean DVD arrived in Oklahoma. My mom is probably going to be mad that I forgot to take a picture of the Christmas tree. She put lights on her fake ficus tree. We put all the presents under there.
As expected, again, Caleb took some convincing to even look in his stocking. But, they got a little bit of loot and as soon as he saw the play-doh he was occupied the rest of the morning. Eva was pretty good to look at all her things and play. This is definitely the last year of me getting away with not having Santa (we decided to save the trampoline for Caleb's birthday--they got SO MANY TOYS!).
On Christmas morning we got everyone loaded up in the car to drive down to Goldsby to see my dad. We got a few miles away from my mom's house when the serpentine belt came off the van and we had to pull over. We let it cool down and we spent the next 30-40 minutes driving back to my mom's house. We could only go a little way before overheating so we'd go and then stop and wait. My mom let us drive her car down so we didn't miss Christmas. Carl and Greg fixed the car the next day and we made it back fine. But, that was the last straw for us and now you know why we were car shopping!
I can't get the rest of the pictures to upload right now so I'll have to finish this later. Coming soon!
Hey, how about the new car? You made it back just in time. . .I thought maybe we'd make it into 2007 without snow. . .oh well.
ReplyDeleteHey, Matt's mom just called and said that the Stake Pres. has called meetings off. . .so now you have LOTS of time to blog!!
ok, so I jumped the gun. . .the stake pres. left it up to the bishops. . .so OF COURSE, we are having church. ..see ya!
ReplyDeleteI just about freaked out after reading your first comment. I was like, "MAN! I just got dressed!". Now I see it's a good thing I did.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to blog about the new car in a day or two. Maybe you'll see it today. I'm just glad we got it when we did. Our other van might not have made it in the snow. That belt was precariously perched and it came off last time because we went through a puddle. Who knows what several inches of snow would have done to it!
man, take pictures of the snow! I forgot what it looked like.
ReplyDeleteWe talked to Ryan's parents last night and they had an inch of ice in Dodge and no electricity! When we talked to them the electricity had been out for 10 hours!
Be safe! and Happy New Year! I finally updated my blog.....I'm such a slacker.
There really was no church!!! But, nobody called us so we went anyway. It was a nice little drive...NOT. At least we didn't wreck.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean no church? I said the opening prayer and sat through a sacrament meeting with our squirmy kids. Had we known how bad the weather and roads were, and especially that we were only going to have sacrament meeting (I think we were the only ward to have any meetings), we would have stayed home too!
ReplyDeleteWe drove all the way there and the sister missionaries were in the parking lot. They told us church was cancelled so we didn't bother getting out! I just found out from Jennifer that there actually was sacrament meeting. Oh well.
ReplyDelete