December 23rd, 2011

This year we were so lucky to have Frank's parents come stay at our house and spend the week of Christmas with us.  Also, his brother, my sister-in-law and their two children were also coming Christmas night to spend two days with us as well.  So naturally, because of our house guests I spent the week of their arrival cleaning and trying to finish up shopping (Christmas and grocery), do home improvement projects, organize things, and get in the "entertaining" mind-set.  

I made a list of things that needed to be done every single day to be ready on time.

Around the 19th of December, Frank got in an accident, small, but did enough damage that his car was in the shop for a while.  We were down to one car during this time trying to juggle everything.  It was working alright, not ideal, but we were making it work.

The day of the 23rd (mom and dad's flight was coming in at 9:00 that night) the van started to sputter while I was out finishing up everything I needed to do that morning.  It then wouldn't accelerate or change gears very easily and eventually died on me twice while trying to drive home from the grocery store.  I was so upset.  We could not be stuck with relatives in town and no car.  I kind of freaked out and was crying on the phone while trying to talk to Frank.  I eventually called the place where his car was (clear in Draper)  and they had it fixed enough to drive, but there was still frame damage that needed to be looked at.  So the plan was to swap the van and Frank's car so we would at least have something to drive (however his tiny car could not hold all of us and his parents at one time). 

Well we picked up mom and dad that night, I took Frank to work the next day (Christmas Eve), and of course the car place was closed early and they didn't get a chance to look at our van.  They were closed Christmas day and finally Monday night they said they got a chance to drive it around and nothing was wrong.   Uggh! We went three days with one car and taking shifts to go anywhere and nothing was wrong.  I wasn't buying it, but I was thankful for the time being we could get our van back.  

Anyway, after all that car trouble on the 23rd and not getting most of what I wanted to do done, I was very stressed.  I came home late that afternoon, the kids had been left in the care of Jackson for a very long time and they knew there was something going on.  I walked in the door and they were all giggling and couldn't wait to show me what they had done.

Yep, they glued googly eyes on their bellies and drew me some smiley faces.  I laughed and it was perfect.