'Twas the Night before Christmas....

Santa's little helper

It's Christmas Eve and we have officially arrived in the cold north leaving 78 degree Florida yesterday and landing in 28 degree Wisconsin. Ironically my sister and her family arrived in sunny Florida to spend Christmas at Disney World. She was raving about the weather once she arrived. It's been a really warm winter for everyone this year. People were talking about how great the 28 degrees has been. "It's not even cold!" It's too bad we won't have a white Christmas to enjoy but it will be nice to see all our friends and family.

Leaf blower goggles

After getting picked up at the airport we hit the road to drive to Lake Geneva and it started snowing. Not enough to accumulate but it was nice to see. The boys were good on the plane considering we're traveling over the holidays with a 1 and 3 year old.  How many people are doing that this year? The first leg went really well and we had good seats on a big plane. We had a short layover in Cincinnati before boarding a tiny little tin can to Milwaukee. These small planes are a killer.  There are only 2 seats to a row so we're separated and both boys and Carrie need to be in the same row because the plane only has 2 seats with more than 2 masks that drop down if the cabin were to depressurize.  Strangely there were few people traveling. We didn't wait in line at all; not to check in, not at security and the airport was no more crowded than usual. Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty were at our gate wishing us a Merry Christmas and handing out candy canes to send us off.

We celebrated our family Christmas before leaving and Quentin was so excited we got zero sleep. He had a tough time going to sleep. The 7 cookies before bed may have contributed. I will take full credit for that one. "Come on Care it's Christmas! I paid the price being on Quinny duty all night. He was up at 10:30, 12:00, 4, and at 4:30 I threw in the towel and he climbed into bed with us. Gavin was already in there so it was a 4:30 am family Christmas in bed. Not sure what we would do if we had 3 or 4 kids. Do they make bigger beds than a king? At 6, giving up on sleeping, we headed out to the tree to see if Santa was able to sneak in the house for the 20 minutes the whole family was sleeping. Q couldn't understand why he couldn't see Santa. I think he wanted to wait for him, which is why he didn't get much sleep. Jimmy the Elf took off with Santa and is back at the North Pole until next year.  We'll all miss Jimmy.  He was such a nice addition to the family.  The last night he was hanging upside down from the fan so he pulled out all the stops for his last 48 hours with the Spiegelhoff's.

Quinny enjoyed opening as many presents as possible more so than what was inside. He tore through all of his, most of Gavin's, most of mine and wanted "More! More! More!" all day long. It was nice but a little strange being in shorts, no fire place and no other family to share the day with. Quinny and Gavin got a new sandbox to play with, a school bus and Q received a leaf blower which he loves and won't put down. They had a nice little haul and we had an enjoyable family day eating and playing all day.  We're looking forward to spending the next few days celebrating the holidays with our extended family.  Merry Christmas!