4 Miles

Early this morning, I stumbled into the bathroom for one of my many visits at this point in the pregnancy.  I went to wash my hands and no cold water came out. I looked around, and realized the power was still on, tried the hot water and was able to wash my hands.  In my sleepy state, I thought nothing of that.  Later, when James and I were both awake, I told him there was no cold water. Sadly, he knew what that meant right away.  For those of you who haven’t already guessed…our pipes had frozen.  (It got into the single digits last night.) 
We have a very nice guy working on them right now.  And we are ‘roughing’ it without water for the morning.  We’ve been taking some financial classes, and the first class we had talked about an “Emergency Fund”, and we had to define what would constitute an emergency. This morning we agreed this would fit the definition.

Today, as Will was playing with his cars:

"Car is hungry."

"Really? What does your car want to eat?" I had to ask, curious what cars like to eat.

"Chicken"

"Chicken?!?"

"Yes…Chicken in the back of the truck. Truck messy. I clean it up!"

Later he told me the car, tractor, and truck were all done with the chicken, and needed to wash their hands. I also heard him telling the car to "Be patient". Guess you can tell what we’re working on in our house!  And, should I be disturbed that he told the car and truck "Good-bye" and gave them each a kiss?

1. We woke up to snow falling this morning. I had Will look out the front window to see it, and he oohed and ahhed. Then we went to go get breakfast, and he said, “Snow in the back yard TOO!”  (I love how little things amaze kids!)

 2. Later, when we were in my bedroom putting away laundry, Will told me “I climb on bed” (He loves the challenged of trying to get up on our bed). I told him “Go for it!”  Once he was up on the bed, he said “I for it!”

Wow is it time for me to update everyone! I’ve had lots of things rattling in my head that I wanted to share, I just haven’t had the time to type it all the thoughts out. Hopefully they’ll come out coherently!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving/Christmas. It was nice to spend it with family.  We had the “typical” Swede Christmas meal (many things I’d never heard of until I joined this family!)—ham loaf (like meat loaf, but with ham), potatoskor (ground beef, ground potatoes and allspice baked together), Cranberry relish, Swedish Meat balls, Green bean casserole, and this year I added a Whipped Potato Casserole (my Irish roots were longing for some white potatoes in the mix!).  We enjoyed the meal, and enjoyed the fun of opening gifts.  Then we played games.

Friday morning, Shari and I had fun going to her favorite consignment store for a big sale they had. (That was ALL the shopping I did on Black Friday, and I really didn’t miss the crowds or the craziness—but I did miss the deals!)  I was looking for winter baby boy items, since Will was a summer baby, and now we’re having a winter baby.  James and I also visited a country store to buy homemade jellies and jams.  That evening was a time where the family got together with cousins they hadn’t seen in awhile for pie and coffee. I had to stay at the farmhouse, I was just too tired to go!  While I missed getting to meet everyone, I appreciated the time to rest, and enjoy the quite.  Saturday was our final day to hang out and play games.  We also started to pack up, so we could leave as soon as possible Sunday morning.  I realized this year was only the SECOND YEAR I’ve ever traveled over Thanksgiving weekend. Last year we went to Dayton to visit one of James’ cousins (an hour drive). We’ve never been close enough to justify the drive to visit family for a 4 day weekend.  I had NO IDEA the amount of traffic we’d encounter on the drive home! And on the PA turnpike, you have limited exits/service plazas…so EVERYONE is using those exits. Wow, was it crazy. The 10 hour drive took us 12 hours.  Part of it was traffic, part of it was a baby that is having fun kicking my bladder, and requiring FREQUENT rest stops!   Poor Karl had to still drive to Chicago that night…I felt bad for him. 

Things I Decided It’d Be Fun To Remember From Year To Year (That I just randomly thought I’d put here):
Games played: Carcassonna, Poker,  A Game of Thrones, Ping Pong (Last year: A Game of Thrones, Munchkins, Cities & Knights of Catan)

Moive Seen: Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

It’s been an adjustment to get used to being back + decorating for Christmas here. The lack of sleep from the whole week, added to the loss of sleep from staying up late for the Monday Night Football game (Colts won!!! It was worth it!!!) are part of the reasons this hasn’t been updated for so long.  Added to that, some major problems with the server at work have made James pull some late nights this week, and me feel like a single mom. (I have NO IDEA how they do it! I didn’t realize how much I looked forward to 6:00 until I realized it would make no difference this week!)  At this point, we’re hoping the server problems have been fixed, and that he can actually work a normal day’s length tomorrow…as his mom said tonight “That’ll teach him to go on vacation”.  It’s been hard for all of us to adjust to being back…I know Will is missing having playmates around, and I miss having other women around to chat with! That is the sign of a good vacation, when it’s hard to come back!