Christmas thoughts
Things that are good:
--Spending Christmas with your far-flung family that you unfortunately only see a couple of times a year if you're lucky, and watching the cousins learn to get along and share.
--Baby, who is as physically cautious as she is precocious, decided to finally start walking (many, many months after her friends of the same age) a few days before arriving and is now wobbling all over the place.
--Baby adores her Grandma (or "Ama", as she calls her), so we might actually be able to go out on a date while we're here.
--Speaking of Grandma, she ordered a standing rib roast for Gretchen to cook for our Christmas Eve dinner. For some reason she told the butcher we would have eight people even though we only had five, so we got one of the largest hunks of meat (around 14 pounds) I've ever seen. Gretchen did an expert job of cooking it, but we may be FedEx-ing slabs of beef to friends in the coming days...
--Getting a package in the mail from Grandpa Tom out in Southern California right before leaving, which included a (loudly) talking Elmo that is sure to keep Baby wildly entertained and drive us to drink.
--After not having eaten any German-influenced food since returning from Switzerland, finding a decent German restaurant, which was a welcome alternative to the plethora of fast-food options for lunch, off of I-81 in the middle of nowhere on the drive down.
--Baby was really a trooper on the long drive.
Things that are less good:
--Driving nine hours to Asheville, NC. Under normal circumstances the drive isn't so bad aside from the length, and can actually be somewhat scenic because so much of it is in the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley. On a busy holiday weekend, however, I-81 was choked with fellow holiday-goers. More importantly, it was packed with 18-wheelers trying to weave in and out of the traffic and pass each other. We only hit a little bit of actual stop-and-go traffic, but there was a lot of intense bumper-to-bumper jockeying for position at high speeds, trying to avoid the trucks, passing on the right because some drivers think it's their God-given right to drive in the left lane no matter how slow they might be driving. By the time we arrived I was physically and mentally exhausted.
--Buying a portable DVD player to attach to the headrest for Baby to watch The Wiggles on the long drive (Baby's love of The Wiggles deserves its own post at some point), only to wait and open the box the morning of the drive (despite Gretchen's numerous requests that I do it earlier in the week) and discover it needs 4-5 hours of charging before use. Oh well, at least it should work on the way home.
--Going to the car to get the camera and some milk for Baby while at the aforementioned German restaurant, picking up my backpack, and watching helplessly as a container of Christmas cookies Gretchen had packed (precariously, I might add) slide out of the car and all over the parking lot.
--Dreading the long drive back.
--Spending Christmas with your far-flung family that you unfortunately only see a couple of times a year if you're lucky, and watching the cousins learn to get along and share.
--Baby, who is as physically cautious as she is precocious, decided to finally start walking (many, many months after her friends of the same age) a few days before arriving and is now wobbling all over the place.
--Baby adores her Grandma (or "Ama", as she calls her), so we might actually be able to go out on a date while we're here.
--Speaking of Grandma, she ordered a standing rib roast for Gretchen to cook for our Christmas Eve dinner. For some reason she told the butcher we would have eight people even though we only had five, so we got one of the largest hunks of meat (around 14 pounds) I've ever seen. Gretchen did an expert job of cooking it, but we may be FedEx-ing slabs of beef to friends in the coming days...
--Getting a package in the mail from Grandpa Tom out in Southern California right before leaving, which included a (loudly) talking Elmo that is sure to keep Baby wildly entertained and drive us to drink.
--After not having eaten any German-influenced food since returning from Switzerland, finding a decent German restaurant, which was a welcome alternative to the plethora of fast-food options for lunch, off of I-81 in the middle of nowhere on the drive down.
--Baby was really a trooper on the long drive.
Things that are less good:
--Driving nine hours to Asheville, NC. Under normal circumstances the drive isn't so bad aside from the length, and can actually be somewhat scenic because so much of it is in the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley. On a busy holiday weekend, however, I-81 was choked with fellow holiday-goers. More importantly, it was packed with 18-wheelers trying to weave in and out of the traffic and pass each other. We only hit a little bit of actual stop-and-go traffic, but there was a lot of intense bumper-to-bumper jockeying for position at high speeds, trying to avoid the trucks, passing on the right because some drivers think it's their God-given right to drive in the left lane no matter how slow they might be driving. By the time we arrived I was physically and mentally exhausted.
--Buying a portable DVD player to attach to the headrest for Baby to watch The Wiggles on the long drive (Baby's love of The Wiggles deserves its own post at some point), only to wait and open the box the morning of the drive (despite Gretchen's numerous requests that I do it earlier in the week) and discover it needs 4-5 hours of charging before use. Oh well, at least it should work on the way home.
--Going to the car to get the camera and some milk for Baby while at the aforementioned German restaurant, picking up my backpack, and watching helplessly as a container of Christmas cookies Gretchen had packed (precariously, I might add) slide out of the car and all over the parking lot.
--Dreading the long drive back.
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