Christmas Vacation, part 1

We survived (and even had some fun while we were at it!). We took off the Friday before Christmas at 5am and drove the 17 hour drive from California to my dad's house in Washington. We arrived shortly after 10pm. It was a long drive, but went fairly well considering the circumstances (17 hours in the car with kids). After celebrating Christmas, opening presents, sledding, building snowmen, and singing along to Grandpa Keith on his guitar, we took off for another leg of our journey to Utah. The drive from Washington to Utah was 14 hours, not quite as long, but almost as horrendous. Tyler had some nasty sicknesses while in Washington, but was getting over them before we left. Susie, on the other hand, was just starting to get sick when we left. She mostly cried during all of her awake moments in the car. But, finally we arrived. Two days after arriving in Utah we took Susie to an urgent care only to confirm our suspicions that she had yet another ear infection. This time it was actually in both ears. We got that solved immediately, but she continued to have horrible sleeping habits for the rest of our trip. Apparently she just didn't like sharing a room with us! On New Year's Eve we drove up to Kevin's Aunt Teresa's house to ring in the new year. We pulled Susie out of bed at 12:30 to drive home. She decided she didn't want to go back to sleep. And, actually didn't go back to sleep until 6:30 in the morning, sleeping until only 8. Janae (Kevin's mom) thankfully took care of her from 4 on. It was a very tiring trip we had! But, worth it. It's always great to be with family for the holidays. After a week of sledding, playing games, and watching movies, we left for home the day after New Year's day. It is great to be back home! But, we miss all our family and the entertainment they provide for our kids (and us)! Because Kevin had to go to work the day after we arrived home, we decided to wait until Saturday morning to open Christmas gifts. Kevin wanted to be around to watch thw kids enjoy their presents. It was lots of fun to see Tyler's excitement. He knew who Santa was before, but really understood it this year. So much fun!