Friday, December 28, 2007

A picture perfect Christmas... almost

Wow- what a whirlwind this holiday season has been, and really, it isn't even over! We still have to go see a bunch of my relatives who just came in from out of town AND New Years AND our anniversary on New Years Eve! Crazy! But for the sake of this post we will just stick to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

So, Christmas Eve we went over to my Aunt and Uncle's house around 2:30 pm. My grandma had brought my Granny (great-grandma) over from the Alzheimer's home she has been living in this last year so she could see the whole family. She is so sweet and interesting to talk to because she comes up with the craziest stories!! I told her that her nails looked nice (they had painted them) and she told me, "Oh thank you. Don't tell anybody, but the boys down at the pistol range just love them! They don't know what to say! But don't tell anyone- they think I'm at the home!" The pistol range?!?! Too funny! Like she escaping and running down to the pistol range to flirt with the guys! (that is Roman & me, up top)

We had BBQ crab for dinner- my all time favorite dinner!! Basically you put a bunch of crab (in the shell) in this homemade BBQ sauce and let it warm in the oven for a couple of hours- SOOOOO GOOD!! Just thinking about it right now is making my salivate! Yumm! We have it with salad and garlic bread- completely indulgent!

After dinner we started opening gifts. I was really excited because I thought that Roman would be really into it this year, and he was at first! That is, until he opened up one of his toys and then all he wanted to do was play with it, not open anymore gifts! Poor guy, we had to keep taking his toys away from him so he would open up the rest of his gifts! I think he thought he was in trouble! We all got nice stuff though! Actually it was pretty funny because all the gifts I received from my grandma I had specifically picked out and some I had even ordered over the internet for her since she wasn't sure how, and yet by the time I got to opening them I had completely forgotten what she was giving me! The holidays had totally sucked my brain out by that point! Oh man, I felt like a moron!

So, later that evening, once things had died down, we headed home to drop off our gifts and pick up our luggage to head out to my in-law's picturesque lake cabin. Roman fell asleep in the car and when we got there I managed to get him inside and laid down fairly quickly (although he did decide to wake up about a bazzilion times that night- mostly to go potty! I can't decide if this is a curse or a blessing!). After we got him down we (well, mostly Jer) put together this little car track with power cars that follow it. It turned out to be a pretty big pain- you had to get every curve at just the right angle or the cars would jump the track and go fourwheelin'! And of course, what does Roman do Christmas morning but run right through the track in all of his excitement and mess the whole thing up!! Oh well- we had fun! He got LOTS of other cars this year- mostly from the movie Cars which he totally loves! He even got a little "Tow Mater" tow truck that he can sit on and push around the house- it has an ignition and a cell phone which he totally loves! His other favorite toy is a play kitchen! Every morning he runs out and makes me breakfast- how sweet of him!

My brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephew showed up around 11 and we opened up the family-exchange gifts. My in-laws gave us a one-night stay at a hot springs in Montana which I am really looking forward to, along with tickets to Blue Man Group, which I have wanted to see for quite some time! My nephew got Guitar Hero III, which we played most of the next two days! It really is a lot of fun! I wasn't half bad if I do say so myself! We had a competition where we all had to play the same song and compare our scores- maybe not the best idea since after hearing "Slow Ride" EIGHT TIMES we were all about to bang our heads against the wall! It was still fun though! (I am to the left, Jer to the right- he was really into getting in full character & rockin' it out!)

But now for the REALLY interesting part of the holiday. It was late Christmas afternoon and I headed into the bathroom to find an over flowing toilet containing less than agreeable contents, left there by "someone" (okay, my 9 year old nephew!). Well, for the two days prior we had been able to hear gurgling through the shower drain every time we flushed and as it turned out we had all been slowly glogging up the system- GROSS!! Jer and his dad tried for hours to fix it! The plunged (which only caused things to back up into the tub- completely nasty!!), they went on the roof and tried to snake the system through the air vent- nothing worked! Of course no plumber was wanting to come out on Christmas night for less than a fortune, so we were forced to find alternative bathroom facilities until the next day! We concluded that peeing outside (in the snow, while it was snowing- talk about freezin' your patootie off!) would work for everyone, but what to do about the "other" end. Well, my in-laws found an old porta-potty toilet they had used on their boat, so we set it up in the laundry room (separate from the house) and they decided that everyone could line the bowl with a plastic bag and then throw the bags away in the dumpster!! Needless to say I began praying immediately that I would not be forced to use these facilities, and by the grace of God I made it home without paying a visit to the laundry room! Hallelujah and Amen!! However, I did get a kick out of taking pictures to document the whole ordeal. The first is of my brother in-law- we had brought the porta-potty in to clean it up. The second is of my father-in-law- showing off our new bathroom! Too funny! It was one of those character building experiences (as my mom would call it)!

What ended up happening then, you wonder? Well, they called out a plumber the next day and after a few hours he concluded that there must be a broken pipe, or roots in the pipe, or something. In other words, it was a bigger job than he could handle and after the snow melts my in-laws will probably end up having to have major plumbing work done on the cabin. To top it off, as the plumber was trying to leave his van got stuck and Jer and his dad had to go out there and push!

The even bigger bummer is that Jer was planning on taking me to the cabin for our anniversary next week! My mother-in- law said, "Well you still could." I said, "Oh yeah- that's my idea of romance- no running water and peein' outside! Come on!" Oh well, I am sure we will figure out something!

So that pretty much sums up our Christmas adventure! All in all, it was lots of fun and a nice time to spend with our families. And hey- I learned to play Guitar Hero III! Haha! (Jer & Roman over there -->)

No comments: