Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, belated Hanukkah blessings, Joyous Yule/Solstice and what else? Oh yes, Happy Festivus!

This past week and weekend was a whirlwind of excitement and go-go-go and sick sleeping. heh. I was miserable Friday at work - got the sickness that Lincoln had last Monday. He was better Tuesday and fine by Wednesday. I left work at noon on Wednesday and went home and packed out bags. Since Celso couldn't come with us I invited Mitchell (our 3 year old cousin) to come with us instead. As soon as he got there (it was a surprise to all the kids) we left and picked up Lincoln - who was quite surprised but very excited to see Mitchell. We got to the Great Wolf Lodge about 5pm and it was just grand. As soon as you walk in we all said "oooh" and were in awe of the lobby. It was decorated for the winter "Snowland" theme and was just beautiful - we were all impressed. We went to our room and the kids just went nuts! This was the floor plan:

and this was what the room looked like:

The kids of course loved the little room with the bunk beds, single twin bed, the desk and the TV. It had Nintendo for their TV but you had to pay additional $7 to play so I said no - they didn't fuss one lick! Who needs Nintendo when you're at the GREAT WOLF LODGE?!
We unpacked our food into the mini-fridge and got our suits on. Mitchell had been there before and he just couldn't wait to get down to the pool. We got our suits on and headed down. Let me tell you it is odd to see people in swimsuits (wet and dry) walking around the hotel along with people in street clothes and others with their coats on... We weren't too cold though so it worked out fine.
We got down to the pool room and WOW! It was amazing! (I'll post pics later this week). The 3 older boys took off and I played with Lincoln and Mitchell in the little kid area - which was perfect for them. We played for about an hour and then Lidia came so we met her at the room and ate our dinner - Hot Pockets & Pizza Rolls - as requested by the kids . We then headed back down for another round of swimming. Mitchell and Lincoln both liked the the kiddie area and the hot tubs. The older boys liked "everything" (their words) but the slides were a huge hit too. I appreciated the warm, dry towels that were supplied by the GWL.
By the end of the evening my throat was raw, my sinus cavities ached and my nose was dripping but I assumed it was due to chlorine as it was pretty strong smelling at the waterpark. However by the morning I was sick, grouchy, felt horrible and just wanted to sleep. I bucked up, fixed our mini-breakfast pizzas, packed up (check out is 11am) and headed back down to the waterpark. I sat in a chair most of the day watching the boys play. I sneezed and sneezed... and sneezed. We ate lunch, played more and I dragged the kids out of there about 2pm. An hour later we were dressed, boys had picked out a gift/souvenir from the gift shop and we were outta there. It was a miserable drive home. I was sneezing, coughing and just wanted rest. Mitchell was picked up soon after we got home and I crawled into bed for a long slumber.
Went to work Friday but I was miserable and everyone on the phone that I talked to knew it. They were glad there was a phone or computer screen between us.
Saturday I rolled out of bed and went to work but was doubly miserable there and came home early - again crawled into bed (thanks Mom for watching the boys!) and I slept and slept. Woke up Sunday feeling MUCH better! Whew!
Went to church and did pretty good, came home to take care of Christmas Eve odds and ends and then we went back to church at 5pm with all 4 boys for Family worship, Jesus' birthday party and then a candlelight service which was beautiful and moving. Lincoln fell asleep about 7:30pm in the middle of the service. So many of our church friends got a kick out of seeing him asleep and still - rare site for Lincoln indeed!
We hung out at home for a little bit waiting for Lidia to get off work and come to the house and I put Lincoln to bed for the evening. Margeret-Leigh and her husband Bryan stopped over and gave gifts to the kids. They run the Field Trip Club that Henry goes to over summer break and when school isn't in session. He will see her next week. They are the sweetest people! The brought a fleece blanket kit for each of the boys AND gift for the boys from Santa! and over a dozen fancy lollypops. She also brought me a gift bag filled with wonderful things! We exchanged hugs and Christmas wishes and she left to spent the holiday with her Dad. I had invited her to spend Christmas eve and/or day with us if her Dad didn't come to town.

Lidia got to the house about 9pm and then we all went to Celso's moms apartment for our traditional Christmas Eve tamale-eating-coffee-drinking-get-together. At 12:30am we left and went to Celso's aunts house to visit her (why we had to make 2 visits instead of them being together I don't know, I don't ask anymore either, I only do this once a year so I don't mind). She gave me her Honey Baked Ham that she gets from her work every year that she doesn't like (yay!) and all the boys got socks for their gifts - not fun but very much needed for all of them. Came home about 1:30am and crawled into bed. I tried not to fall asleep (had to get up and play Santa) but it was hard. Every few minutes Henry would pop up exclaiming he "heard something" and think "it's Santa" or would swear he could hear the "reindeer on the roof". Several times he jumped so much he startled me and make my heart race. He was determined to "catch Santa".
Henry finally dozed off and I was able to sneak off and do my Santa part. My heart start pounding whenever the floor creaked afraid Henry'd pop up and actually catch Santa.

Christmas morning came and was wonderful (minus the whining from Henry due to lack of sleep). The boys were delighted with the gifts from Santa and Henry swears he heard Santa. Fine if he did "hear" Santa and his reindeer but I'm glad he didn't "catch Santa".
Lidia and the boys came over in the morning and we exchanged gifts with them. Henry got the fleece blanket he's been wanting from Lidia and Lincoln got a wonderfully cozy fleece Dora blanket he's in love with. Lidia gave me 2 pairs of jeans but I'll need to return them as they aren't 'long'.
The boys and I then left and headed to the Salvation Army to deliver Christmas meals. We picked 4 homes and they assigned us zip code 64123. I mapped my route and off we headed. We found 3 of the 4 and I'm fairly convinced the 4th didn't exist so I don't feel bad about not finding it. I called the phone number even on the card and the number was disconnected. Lincoln enjoyed delivering the meals and even accepted the hugs graciously. Henry was still overly tired and didn't enjoy it as much and was quite leery of these old people wanting to hug and squeeze on him - he did allow it though - just not as warmly as Lincoln.
We got back home and helped mom fixed Christmas dinner - ate and then Henry and I took a very much needed nap.
We woke up and called my Dad, my grandma and Celso, spent some couch-cuddling time and we all went to bed about 10pm. Very Christmas day.

Here it is Tuesday, I'm at work and it proving to be a slow, dull, boring day. blah. I work tonight as well. phooey! Least I have another 3 day weekend coming up!

Celso comes home Saturday night and we'll all bring in the new year together!

(sorry for the long post but we've had a lot going on!)