And so this is Christmas ’08, Part I

I had my web host move the blog so that we didn’t run into so much downtime… sadly this messed up permissions and I’ve been unable to edit the blog. That’s not why, tho. I’ve basically been on fire since I got back from Florida with work and whatever else. But now we’re back in business apparently, so let’s get bloggin’.

First we start at home:

This is a picture from Christmas at home, which took place on the 20th of December. Ian received a guitar as one of his presents, and it is pretty fantastic as far as kid’s toys go, I must say. I on the other hand, am sporting a very mature (cough) um… controller for a uh… video game where you pretend to be able to play guitar. See this image larger.

Believe it or not, the night of the 20th, we headed for Lansing, to stay at a hotel, as mentioned in entries below. Ian slept between us in bed when we got there, and he was a real trooper. There were some intense moments of driving through the blizzard, and to see him cuddle up on his “blankie” out of exhaustion was heartening to say the least.

The next morning, we made it to the airport via shuttle, and the runways did not look very clear… there was also a crazy wind rustling up walls of zero-visibility for the pilots to contend with. They moved our gate twice…

The flight to Florida was arduous — Ian did his best not to cry, although the flight aggravated his ears which were still hurting from his cold a handful of days earlier. We tried his pacifier, but it didn’t seem to make him feel much better, and he was not a happy camper by the time the plane was beginning its final descent. Girl that sat in front of Ian… wherever you are… I apologize to you again for the number of times your seat got kicked and the tray behind you was moved into the up/down position. Mostly people told us that he had behaved himself nicely, apparently in contrast to some other kid they were thinking of. One thing that came back to haunt us was a game that we played back at home. Melissa or I would pretend we were asleep and snore loudly, Ian would scream “GAAKUP!” meaning, of course “WAKE UP!” Well, you can imagine what he thought when he looked around and saw mostly a plane-ful of sleepers that needed some waking. (It didn’t turn out as bad as I made it sound, but some hasty explanation was in order.)

Anyway so the plane landed, Grandma Sue was waiting with excited hugs, and Melissa began figuring out the car seat. We had a brief hilarious moment in the airport parking lot in the meanwhile… a car full of people was waiting in line behind us as we packed up the car, and they were looking at Ian with a sort of anticipation, constantly glancing behind them and then over at the boy in my arms. I swiveled Ian a bit so that both of us could see what was behind them, and lo’ there was Santa driving a mini-van, complete with cap and a dead-ringer for Mrs. Claus. I pointed and Ian lit up like a Christmas Tree “SANTA!” The entire car erupted with happy laughter and applause and Santa kindly waved back.

Grandma Sue drove us straight to Grandma Barb and Grampa Ray’s where fun and mayhem awaited us… More about our time there next entry!