Christmas recap

Hey there all! Hope your holidays have gone well thus far. Mine has been a mixed bag, not gonna lie. I've had some great stuff happen the last few days and some really shitty stuff happen as well. Because life can't just be uneventful for awhile, now can it? At least not mine.......

Christmas Eve I was stuck at work, which was ok because I was fully prepared to bust my butt and get out early. That is, until one of the supervisors came around and announced that we couldn't leave until we helped the other departments with their work. Calling "BS" on this one, I took one for the team (the task involved data entry crap), I did enough of the other depts work for four people, so that not only myself, but also my co-workers could get the hell out of there. It didn't help when I talked to my brother and learned that he, my parents, my sis, brother-in-law and niece were all at my grandpa's without me. So, after busting my ass finishing my own work, I did the other teams work and managed to escape a little after 1pm. Did I mention it was pouring on Christmas Eve? So much for good hair for the annual family pictures....but I digress.....

So, I arrived at gramps, was able to hang with my fam for awhile before heading to my Aunt Jan's house for the big fam celebration. As I've mentioned previously, I was very excited that for the first time in many years, ALL of us would be there, including all my cousins that live out of state. Well, almost all of us were there. My cousin Jeff had to work as did my Uncle Ron, but everyone else made it. It was a bit overwhelming at times (I have A BIG family), but fun. The five great-grandkids were there, watching them interact with each other was hilarious and for my niece Kendall, and my cousin's little girl Addison, it was their first Christmas! Pics coming later-I made a promise to my sister that I'd let her be the first to post pictures of Miss Kendall's first Christmas. Here are a couple I stole from the fam blog, however:

My immediate fam. Obviously this is not from my camera as we are all looking in another direction but.....top row is my sis, mom and me. Bottom row is my dad, my bro-in-law Jon holding miss Kendall and my little bro (rockin the argyle baby!).

This is a pic of all the grandkids (minus my cousin Jeff who was working), great grand-kids (minus miss Addison who was already in bed) and spouses of the grandkids. This pic cracks me up.

Riding my high from having fun with my family, we arrived back at my Grandpa's house Christmas Eve night to discover.......someone had hit my car. Ugh. Turns out, it was his neighbor who at least left a note and was honest about it. Remember when I hit the dog and had to get the bumper replaced? Yea....it's gonna have to be replaced AGAIN. As will the panel above my front tire-it's all smashed in. The tire doesn't appear damaged, thank God. Picture coming home to this at 11:30pm on Christmas Eve and initially thinking it wasn't drivable-I was BEYOND pissed. And when I'm pissed, I cry. The next morning, the offender came over to provide her insurance info (thank GOD she has insurance) and my dad obtained some wire and rigged up my bumper so it was no longer dragging the ground, test drove my car and deemed it drivable. So, I drove out to my uncle's house as planned to see the Davidson side of the family and then down to Salem to celebrate Christmas with my immediate family. While I was still way pissed about my car (because it's just such a pain in the ass to contact the insurance company, get estimates, get it fixed, get a rental car, etc etc etc.....), I tried to forget about it and focus on being with my family. Christmas night was such fun-it was all about the baby, of course, and seeing the look on her face when she got to try out her new toys (she also liked "helping" grandpa open his gifts). My sister and I were also very proud to receive framed pics of our brother in his cap and gown (it was kinda funny and we laughed about it but truly are proud of him!). My family is so much fun, it really doesn't matter what we're doing, we always have fun. My parents, as always, were WAY too generous with their gift giving. Saturday was spent just chillin with the fam and planning our family summer trip to the beach (yea baby!).

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. It started off well enough. Well, I mean, we DID have to say good bye to my sis, bro-in-law and niece as they began their drive back to Dallas (ick). I was having a little tummy distress but thought nothing of it, figuring it was the holidays, I'd eaten things that I don't typically eat, that's why my tummy isn't happy. I went to church without incident. After church, my mom and I went to Wal-Mart (because what weekend would be complete without a trip to Wally World???) and I began to feel clammy, light-headed and like I was gonna faint. Thinking perhaps I was dehydrated, I drank a bottle of water and figured I'd be fine. Yea....not so much. Let's just say, the afternoon quickly declined once back home. There was hurling, crying (I was soooooo sick all I could do was sit there and cry), and a temperature of 101 (I NEVER run a fever so for it to get that high was pretty alarming). Needless to say, I was in no position to drive back to St. Louis nor would it have been possible to come to work on Monday, which I didn't. I slept most of the afternoon/evening on Sunday, went to bed at 9:30pm and slept until 9:00am Monday morning. Then, I was awake for about an hour and went back to bed until 2:30pm. My fever finally broke late afternoon yesterday (back to it's normal low of 97.8), and while I still had no appetite, I at least felt like I was gonna live (there were times on Sunday that I was praying for death. For reals.). Today, thus far, I still don't have much of an appetite, and my eye is all jacked up again (really? 3rd time in 3 months? WTF is going on???), but I'm back at work. In between actually working, I am on the phone with AAA (the offenders insurance) trying to arrange all this car crap. While the AAA lady has been very nice, this is still a giant pain in the ass.

So, there you have it, my Christmas weekend in a nutshell. It could have been better, but then again, it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse too. At least I have my health (back) and my family. And, someday, a car that's not all jacked.