Christmas update

I didn't post at all while we were in Tennessee for the holidays. It was a wonderful time, and it went by all too quickly. Rebecca and I flew to Tennessee on the evening of Friday, December 14 and arrived in Huntsville the next morning. Rebecca was wonderful on the flights and slept peacefully; no problems with making our connecting flight either, although we were a bit late getting in. Mom and Aunt Margaret picked us up, and we met Lynn, Jessi, and Jenni at Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then visited Kathryn at her wonderful quilt shop. She has beautiful fabrics! That night was the Girl Posse Christmas party. I had drawn Jackie's name, and Lisa had drawn my name. Rebecca got to visit with her friend Will, and he gave her the FP Laugh and Learn Puppy, which she adores. Sunday, we went to church with my mom and had another Cracker Barrel visit. That next week, we took Rebecca to see Dr. Swogger to have her heart murmur re-checked. It is still there but a little softer and still gives indication of only being an innocent murmur. We also did a lot of shopping, and we baked and made candy. We took a lot of goodies to my dad's transplant nephrologist and kidney transplant team at Vanderbilt, and it was nice to see them.

Ramy was to arrive at 8 a.m. on Friday, December 21. However, a total freeway shutdown resulted in him missing his flight, in spite of the fact that he had allowed enough time to get there about 3 hours early. After more annoyance with talking to three different people at American Airlines and getting three totally different stories, I ended up booking him on a one-way Southwest flight and he still got in that afternoon. We checked in to the Opryland Hotel and had an atrium view room. That night, we went to see the Rockettes holiday show. Rebecca LOVED IT! She was jumping up and down, singing, and reaching to try to touch all the characters. That was the first 30 minutes; then she fell asleep for the next hour and a half of the show! It was a fun thing to do and something different.

We finished our shopping, got everything wrapped, and cooked and baked until we were spent. We did Christmas Eve at my aunt's house, as always, and we went to Christmas Eve communion at my mom's church. Christmas morning, we got up and ate a wonderful Christmas morning breakfast and then went to Christmas morning Mass at St. Anthony in Fayetteville. As soon as we got home, Rebecca fell asleep! So we ended up waiting to open presents until about 1 p.m. She loved all her things, although she was pretty fixated on her little kitchen and her riding car, which were the first things she saw. Aunt Margaret came for dinner that night, and we were pretty laid back.

After Christmas, we were all dealing with being sick, except for Rebecca. We did more shopping and eating and a lot of laying around. We rang in the New Year with the Girl Posse. We flew back to California on Friday evening, and Vincent picked us up in the pouring rain. Now we're just trying to unpack and get things organized so we can get back into the daily grind.