Time Flies...

The days and weeks have flown by and I still haven't updated my blog. Ugh. And the longer it takes the harder it becomes.

So, I'm going to rip the bandaid off and write about what we've been doing for the past two months. Or is it three months?

The last I wrote, I think was right before Halloween, so let me start with that - Halloween was a very fun time this year. Last year the kids didn't really seem to get it and they were a little overwhelmed by it. This year, however, the girl literally couldn't contain her enthusiasm. She received a tootsie roll at the first house we visited and it was as if someone had given her something she had only dreamed about. She came back to us from that first door, dug around in her plastic cauldron (she was a witch this year), and started screaming, "Look!!! Look what I got!!!" She was so excited that she was actually jumping up and down at every doorstep. Oddly enough, it made me extremely proud that she could be so overwhelmingly excited about receiving small pieces of candy from strangers. (think about that one awhile...)

Our next family adventure was to attempt to ride in the Tour de Gruene (pronounced "green"). It's a bike ride in Gruene, Texas and since it's not a hugely popular bike ride with thousands and thousands of riders, we thought it would be a good introduction to organized bike rides for the kids. PLUS, it's held during Wurstfest - biking and brats, what could be better?!

So, we drove out Friday night and checked into the hotel. At 2:00am, the boy woke up and came into bed with us... where he promptly threw up all over me. We spent the rest of the night waking up every 30 minutes to hold a bowl for him to throw up into.

Eventually, we got ahold of our doctor's office and got some anti-nausea medicine from the local Walgreens. The boy took some of the medicine and was immediately better and was fine for the rest of the day, which allowed us to go to Wurstfest anyway, so the trip wasn't a complete waste. :)

Since we weren't able to do the bike ride that weekend, we decided we would instead go to Novemberfest the following weekend. It turned out to be a good ride, but I had been fighting a cough for a few weeks (that one of our pediatrician friends told me was "walking pneumonia" and that I needed to go to a doctor - actually her exact words were, "YOU'RE the reason I don't see adults. Adults refuse to take care of themselves. Get to a doctor now!") and due to my limited lung capacity, the ride was, ummm... let me say "difficult" for me - I was unable to catch my breath and was seeing stars after we had only ridden 5 miles. Luckily, the road curved around to be a little more "with the wind" and we were able to finish the 30-mile ride just a little after lunchtime. There was a festival afterwards that the kids enjoyed and it turned out to be a good time for all.

We spent Thanksgiving in New Orleans with my in-laws, during which time, the cough that I still hadn't gone to the doctor about (yes, the pediatrician was correct - adults don't take care of themselves) turned into a raging sinus infection and general super-bad illness. I went to the doctor on Monday after Thanksgiving and got some good drugs which allowed me to return to work (still with a disgusting hacking cough!) on Wednesday. Even now on January 4th, I occasionally have a little bit of the leftover cough. Note to self: don't ever avoid going to the doctor again...

My goal this year for Christmas was to be like my friend, Courtney, who gets all of her Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. I didn't make it.

However, I did get most of it done just after Thanksgiving, which made me think that I might have a chance at having a somewhat relaxing Christmas season. And I was totally wrong.

We ended up having two different dinner parties (because we had so much extra time!) and I was still running around trying to take care of things up until the day before Christmas.

The in-laws came over for Christmas Day and we left for Nebraska the day after Christmas. We drove straight through and made it to my parents' house in about 15 hours - quite a feat with two small children! Without the kids, I think the fastest we had made the trip before was about 13.5 hours.

We came back south just in time for New Year's Eve, which we spent quietly at home and in bed before midnight. After the hectic holidays, that was very nice.

So, that brings us up to date, I think! I've been back to work for two days, now I have a three-day weekend, and then back to our usual routine.

I won't say that my New Year's resolution is to blog more, but I might make a bit more of an effort. :)