The next morning was a brief packing frenzy while we readied
and departed on our trip south to visiting husband’s brother and his little
family, including our three week old niece.
The drive was long, we tried to break it up with movies, games and
occasion stops including lunch and a visit to small museum featuring Native
American artifacts, fluorescent fossils and dino bones. Butterfly looked over our atlas every once in
awhile, tracking our progress and pretending to read the town names by
inventing new names (which were significantly more creative and interesting
sounding than the true names.) The long
drive was made longer by the snowy weather but we eventually arrived without
any significant break downs. We checked
into our hotel and found it to be perfect, two adjoining rooms to give us all
the space we needed. It was late and we
eagerly went to bed.
The next morning we thoroughly enjoyed the hotel’s breakfast
and readied for family pictures. We met
everyone at the portrait studio and managed a decent photo of Grandma and
Grandpa with all of their grandkids. We
wandered down the mall to let the girls explore the play area and found lunch
at the food court. Soon we headed back
to the hotel for naps and it was blissfully wonderful to begin catching up on
some much needed sleep. We spent the
second part of the day at my brother in laws house, cuddling my new niece and
relishing in her new baby perfection, watching the girls play with their
cousin, playing Just Dance on the
wii, exchanging Christmas gifts, coloring pictures and devouring prime rib and
pear custard pie for our belated Christmas feast. Grandma and Grandpa finished the wonderful
evening with a short Christmas program that they did for their ward, a few
carols played on the guitar and flute, briefly narrated to tell the Christmas
story.
After another good night’s sleep at our hotel and another
tasty breakfast, we arrived again at my brother in law’s house for more
playtime and sledding on the nearby hills.
They girls loved it! Lovely
looked a bit like the Michelin man and could hardly move in her snowclothes but
she was warm and loved sledding (another budding thrill seeker). The girls went down again and again, racing
back to the top for more. Eventually we
tired and returned to the house for lunch and back to the hotel for naps. After
naps we returned for more fun; playing games, coloring, decorating cookies,
watching a movie, dinner and playing with puppets.
Saturday was our last day there. So we packed our things, enjoyed the hotel’s
generous breakfast once more and went to my brother in law’s house. The girls disappeared downstairs to play with
their cousin, we cuddled their precious and perfect baby some more, had some
crazy dancing time with all the girls (the weekend favorite was “GangumStyle”,
followed closely by the usual favorite “everyday I’m shufflalin’!” and “bounce!” No kid music for us, our tiny tots love the
top 40s.) We went to lunch at an Indian
restaurant. Their food was wonderful and
even the girls enjoyed it. Ladybug
devoured the rice and Butterfly loved dipping her naan bread in the tika masala
sauce. Eventually we said our goodbyes
and began our trek home.
Fortunately this time, we stopped halfway there to spend the
night with my grandma. We arrived at her
house and had our usual squealing and running in excitement to see “grandma-great”
and her puppies. We were the couriers of
grandma’s gifts from my parents so the girls happily arranged those under the
Christmas tree. They had picked out some
perfect gifts for her so her face was priceless as she opened them. Grandma also gave my girls some gifts, each
of them got a little baby doll to play with and they were ecstatic. It was especially perfect because then they
doted on their babies, playing with them the whole time we were there. We went out for dinner and then Grandma took
us around town to see all of the amazing Christmas lights. There were some phenomenal displays but the
absolute winner was the house generously decorated with lights that danced on
and off to match the music from the radio! It was phenomenal! It reminded me of the water fountains in
front of Vegas’ Bellagio.
We spent the night at her house and attended church with her
the next morning before completing the long drive home. Fortunately it passed quickly and soon we
were home again, ready to start settling into our new routine.
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