Thanksgiving and Christmas

It is hard to believe so much time has passed since I last wrote. We have been very very busy. Thanksgiving was very nice. We made some new friends at our church and they invited us over for Thanksgiving since they didn't have any family in town too. They have a son who is right between Sam and Evie's age and the kids had great fun playing together. It was very nice and it was great not having to cook for Thanksgiving.

In early December we decided to drive out to Oregon and surprise my cousin for her wedding. We had an extra check that month that would allow us to do that. However, we had to register our car first. I was only expecting to pay about $150 but it ended up costing around $450 so there went all our money we were going to use to drive out. We went home and unpacked the car and started calling our family to let them know we weren't coming after all. Then about an hour later, Dwayne's cousin let us know that the family was pulling together some money so we could come anyway. So we quickly packed the car up again and headed out. It is a 20 hour drive non-stop. Dwayne and I alternated driving through the night and the kids did so good. I'm really proud of them. We were extremely tired but it was so worth it to see the surprise on Tessa's face when she saw us there for her wedding. We had to leave Sunday night to make it home Monday since Dwayne could only take a couple days off of work. The drive went pretty well but we were so tired. It took much longer to get home as we stopped at a hotel for a few hours to get some sleep and made many more stops than on the way out. I also managed to get my very first speeding ticket ever. We finally made it home around 8pm Monday night. It was a very short trip but it was so worth it to see everyone even briefly.

Christmas was very nice. The kids were so excited to open all their presents and see if Santa had filled their stockings. Dwayne and I were excited too and awake even before the kids waiting for them to come and get us so we could start opening presents. I was a little sad at first for this was our first Christmas completely by ourselves but I was soon happy and having a great time because the kids were having so much fun and joy at opening their presents. My good friend had also invited us over for Christmas dinner so we went over to her house and I got lucky in that I didn't have to cook yet again for a major holiday. We are truly blessed and very happy that in this economy, Dwayne still has a job and we have a place to live. We are making our bill payments and the kids are happy. Overall, things are good and we are doing well. Just been busy living life and enjoying our children.