This is just the fun stuff. I am leaving out all of the fevers, vomiting, face implosions, second-degree burns, and tears:\
We left for my parents’ house in Mississippi on the Friday before Christmas, a day earlier than we had planned, because Max kept nagging us about wanting to be there already. The drive really was better than I expected, but I had to pull out a DVD about three hours into the second day’s drive. That kept everyone happy until we got to town. Yay. We got to Miss about 1 pm. It was so nice to see my parents. I just wanted to hold hands and sing “Kum By Ah.”\
While there we went to the zoo and had fun having a sing-along with a dancing, singing Santa statue and dropping coins into the spinny, twirly donation bucket. Yea, that isn’t a ringing endorsement of the zoo, is it?\
My parents took the kids to see the chipmunk movie and they both loved it! (Which is difficult to achieve with their age gap.) While they were doing that, Kevin and I saw Charlie Wilson’s War. Woot!\
On Christmas Eve, we drove to this little town, Tylertown, to see a Christmas lights display in the town’s park. One hundred miles round trip for a 13 minute drive through the park. Do I know how to prioritize my resources or what?\
My dad had fun taking the kids for rides on the trailer attached to his riding lawn mower. That is our version of a hayride, I guess.\
One of th gifts Brian received is a Barbie, because he’s been asking for one for ages. My mother-in-law let him play with one at her house and said that he just loved it. Well, I am not sure exactly what was going on there, but all Brian wants to do with his new Barbie is “smell her butt.” Yes, he’s three.\
My mom invited a friend over for Christmas dinner. She is a gifted educator. We talked for awhile about Max, and she kind of spurred me on to do more about Max’s schooling. It’s been really hard to find out answers here and I keep getting the run around. Boo.\
My dad and Kevin took the kids fishing for the first time. Apparently everyone had fun. I only have one picture though because the adults were too busy keeping the fishing hooks out of the kids’ eyes and keeping the kids from falling into the lake.\
The town had a fund raiser by selling giant fiberglass swans to businesses and organizations. It was fun to drive around town and spot them. Think of the painted cows in Chicago and you’ll get the idea.\
Probably the highlight of the trip, and isn’t this sort of sad, was watching the USA-version of The Forty Year Virgin with my parents. No F-words, but all the raunch. That movie is hysterical. For some reason, let’s blame the eggnog, it was so much funnier the second time around.\
I was really intent on trying all the yummy regional food: fried catfish, shrimp creole, bbq ribs, and Krispy Kremes (heh). Add all of the holiday food on top of that and I need to eat salad for the next month to cleanse the body.\
We left a day later than we had originally planned. I needed that extra day with my folks; they just live too far away now that I am hampered by school vacation schedules. Boo. Before we left, we made plans to go down there in June and then drive to the beach, plus my mom said that she and my dad would come up here next Christmas. :)\
There may or may not be pictures posted soon.