Yes, Christmas this year was definitely not what I was hoping for. We had lots of great plans and fun activities planned and we missed out on most of it.
Friday night - exactly one week before Christmas Day - Jocelyn came down with the WORST stomach bug we have ever dealt with. I mean WORST!! It was 4 days before the vomiting stopped completely, and it was literally weeks before she fully recovered.
She missed cookie baking with friends, the last 3 days of fun activities at school before winter break, play dates - it was awful and so sad. Pat and I were wrapping gifts at midnight the day before Christmas Eve. Our cookies for Santa were generously given to us by a friend because I never got to do any baking. And the reindeers peanut butter balls were made the day before Christmas Eve.
By Christmas Eve Jocelyn was feeling well enough to hook up Santa and the reindeer in our usual fashion, though she still wasn't up to eating anything, we made sure the reindeer had their night time snacks.
Christmas morning she enjoyed her gifts - thank you Santa for the Go-Go Puppy! Legos are also very big this year! (More on that in a minute!)
Christmas Day night we were packing for a trip to PA to visit Pat's family. We really debated on whether we could make this trip, it had been such a rough week. But we're so glad we did because it was really the highlight of our Christmas. We had missed out on so much of the holidays, it was so nice to have family together baking cookies, and sharing meals and laughs.
Scott and Rachel were there from Indiana so we were all together for the first time in about a year and a half. We were so thankful that the weather was good enough to travel and we were healthy enough, for the time being (little did we know), to make the trip.
There's a little story behind this picture. Tiffany, Tina's daughter has a son and for Christmas he got a pop up tent. There was no problem getting it to pop up, but getting it flat and small enough to put back in the bag, was a whole other story! Scott, the PH.D. and Pat the engineer, took 1/2 hour to figure out how to do it. We were all very supportive while we watched. Tiffany said from now on she's shoving it behind the sofa. I don't blame her!
So back to the Legos. We mentioned to Grandma that Jocelyn is really into Legos right now and not surprising, Grandma had saved Pat and Scott's Legos all these years. Out came a giant bin which included the parts to a castle that Pat took on the challenge of building. Hours (and quite a few days) later...
So we got home from our trip, and literally, 36 hours later, Jocelyn woke up crying with a cold and sore throat. New Year's Eve morning we were at the Dr's office getting a strep test, which turned out to be negative. I would rather she has a cold than the stomach bug any day, but she was still miserable and the day before school started again we were debating on whether she was even going to make it back to school, but thankfully she did!
And now I am trying to recover from a sinus infection and bronchitis. Never a dull moment.
So Happy New Year! Here's to health, happiness, and peace in the world. The world needs it so much right now. 2016 will bring much more excitement for us, so stay tuned!!
