Daley Ponderings

The night we arrived (Monday) was "Christmas Eve" so we each opened our one present from "Mr. Ho" and filled the stockings for the morning. It turns out that Santa had also visted Bermuda, because we each received a souvenir ornament from Bermuda.
"Christmas" morning was leisurely, as Mom had to go pick up Aunt Eleanor. Jon also went to the store to buy Josh's present, which we were supposed to have done on the trip over, but forgot. When he got back, he and I left again to act on my new theory. I was still queasy, on and off, so I thought it would be a great Christmas present for everyone if I was pregnant. So we sneaked to the store and sneaked the test in and sneakily took it. But it was negative, so we did not mention it at all. (Except now on this blog.)

Then it was present time, and for the first time, Jonathan really got the hang of ripping the paper off. Previously, he would rip off a piece, and then play with the paper. But now he can rip off the paper and keep ripping until he finds the present underneath. (Except once with some clothes - he took off the paper, tossed it over his shoulder, we opened the box, he tossed the tissue paper, tossed the shirt, tossed the pants, tossed the tissue paper, aha! A box, yeah! Good present, thanks.)

All the while, large construction vehicles played in the backyard, working on Mom and Dad's porch addition. Poor guys, they had to work on "Christmas"! But it was nice that the rest of the world had already had Christmas, because we needed the stores and the auto mechanic and various other things.

I'll let Jon post details about the car, but the basic idea is that the guy didn't really want to work on it, or he didn't know how.

The next morning, Cinnamon got that stomach bug. Throughout the rest of the week, Josh and Dad got it too. Grandpa had a cold but to my knowledge did not get the stomach part. Erica went home early but survived.

Wednesday, the Westons came over and we had "Christmas" again with them. After dinner, several of the guys played golf around the house, and most balls got lost in the snow and the dark.

Thursday was a relaxed day (for those who were not sick.) We played with Jonathan and played games and took naps and read books. Jon went to Piexx and to the mechanic. By dinner, Josh and Cinnamon were well enough to join us, and Ben cooked. All the dinners and other traditional meals we had were great.

Friday morning, Jon did last minute stuff with the mechanic, trying to save our car, but it all turned out to be a no go, so I went with Mom, Ben, Cinnamon, and Josh to the airport and picked up the rental car that Jon had reserved the night before. When we got back with that, Jon packed it up, we had lunch, said goodbye, and left at noon.

At 3, we stopped at a pizza place for lunch, and at 8 went to McDonald's for dinner, but it had just closed for New Year's Eve. So we went to the Cracker Barrel. In the parking lot, Jonathan's traveling legs were not quite ready for walking and he fell over straight onto his forehead. The sound it made hitting the asphalt was appalling - a "thonk" that sounded horrible. He screamed crazily while I carried him inside, but he abruptly stopped once he saw all the cool stuff on display. His forehead, however, broke into a large purple bruise with red splotches, and his nose was bleeding. He no longer cared about his injuries (good sign!) and was walking around looking at the stuff, but I had them get some ice. By then, Jon came in (he had been helping some people outside with their car) and took Jonathan for a diaper change and a nose cleanup.

Jonathan didn't want the ice on his head, but he did suck on a piece. He really liked (or was fascinated by) the little weasel ball thing that rolls all over the floor by itself. We spent quite a long time there, I had ordered a hamburger to go and Jon ordered a molasses milkshake (sounds strange, but it's really good.)

We listened to Excalibur on tape, but by 11 Jon was even falling alseep to that (I had already gone down) so he woke me up and we decided to get a hotel. We got to our room about 8 minutes to midnight, so we decided to watch the ball drop while Jonathan nursed back to sleep. The ball dropping is quite overrated. It's not really that cool. But we said happy new year, and then Jon went to sleep. Jonathan however, was not ready to go back down, and I did not get to sleep until almost 1:30.

We woke at 6:40 (40 minutes later than planned) cleaned up, had breakfast, and headed home. We hurriedly unloaded the car at home, not even taking Jonathan out, and then headed for the airport. We got there about 45 minutes after 10, which was the rental return time. But they did not charge us extra. Then we took a bus home and began unpacking.

Our friends Bill and Jill Nelson were in town, so they came over for some visiting, and after that we had dinner and went to bed early. This morning, Jon and Jonathan went to church and I slept in because I was extremely tired. I have now eaten breakfast and written these Christmas Adventure posts and now I will take a shower before Jon and Jonathan get home.