Christmas 2007 Recap

Ok, ok....I know it's been awhile. No excuses other than being busy getting ready for the holidays and then being really sick. I literally spent every free moment after dinner each night working on photo related Christmas gifts and then my last week when I thought I finally had some time, I got really sick and didn't do anything! I even had to do some of my last minute Christmas shopping the weekend before Christmas which I had vowed to be done by so not to have to worry about all the craziness at the malls!

Anyway...so here is my Holiday Recap 2007:)

Dec 16 2007: Our holiday started this day when we had our Christmas celebration with Ben's dad and step mom and our usual gift exchange. It was a fun time, kids loved their gifts and both Ben and I got things we really wanted. Ben finally got his tempurpedic pillow that he has wanted and I got "How I Met your Mother" season 2 DVD, a book I wanted, new Sony head-phones for my iPod (which I LOVE) and a VERY cool new tripod:) Here are photos of the tripod and headphones:

Sony MDR-EX71SLA Headphones (Black)

And the awesome tripod which is called the Gorilla Pod SLR:

This thing is awesome. It Grips and twists to be used in the most unusual places-love it and can't wait to play with it more outside when the weather gets better!

The kids picked out some cookies special as gifts for us, one was a cookie try and one was this gigantic Santa gingerbread cookie. Here is a pic of us with the cookies:

And the giant cookie:

After gifts we all just hung around, played with the kids toys, which included this transformer star wars thing that no one could get back into the death star shape and I spent close to 45min and got it closed-but it didn't last:) Here is a group photo of us that we took:

The next day was Monday-went to work, nothing too exciting. OH, but that does remind me of the crazy Christmas stuff from the Friday before....I will make a separate post for just my work related holiday stuff after this:)

Tuesday, I woke up with a sore throat but went to work b/c I knew it was a busy day but when I got there, I realized it wasn't as busy as I thought and since I didn't feel well I asked if I could go home. I went home before the day even started! I was still sick on Wed and stayed home again b/c I didn't want to be sick on Thurs for our holiday party. I did go to work on Thurs even though I still wasn't 100% and by the end of the day I felt worse again and all day my friends could tell I was sick. I tried to call a dr office but they told me "we don't have any room for you tonight or tomorrow" and I replied to that with "well a lot of good that does me" I was going to just go to a medi-merge type place so I could get something since it seemed I had what my friend had a few weeks ago. Lucky for me, my friend at work who is a local eye dr, knew a regular dr and he called them for me and got me in to see the dr if I went right over, so I did. I was SOOO grateful he got me in b/c I don't think I would have been better by Christmas if he hadn't. My boss had said I could just stay home on Friday too if I was still sick so I would be better by the holiday and so I did and I was glad I did. With the antibiotics and cough medicine the dr gave me, I slept most of Friday and by Saturday I started to actually feel better.

By Monday (Christmas Eve) I was still pretty tired and had no voice but felt better which was good. Ben and I went to south jersey to his mom's house around lunch time and spent the day there and had the regular Christmas Eve Party at his mom's house. We brought my grandfather too and it was a fun night. I started to not feel well again after we ate so I was pretty mellow and didn't take much photos but the kids got DDR for Christmas and so it was fun to sit and watch everyone try it. Here is a pick of the kids playing and then one of Ben and his cousin Josh:

After all the excitement there, we took my grandfather home and went over to Ben's brother's house where we spent the night.

Christmas Day:

It's always fun to wake up with them and the kids on Christmas morning if we aren't going to be at our own home. The kids enjoy coming up to the room we sleep in and letting us know it's time to get up because Santa was there!

After the kids opened all their gifts we all just sort of hung around and played with some of the new games. Ben's mom and step father came over too after breakfast. DDR and some 80s sing along and High School Musical sing along were the top hits of the morning. Around 1pm we got our stuff together and headed out b/c we wanted to find a place to get some lunch before heading to my dad's since we didn't' need to be there till 3pm. We were lucky enough to get to the diner before they closed for the day so we got some lunch. One thing that surprised me though was that when we left, we left a $20 tip b/c it was Christmas and the people had to work and we were glad they had so it was a little extra for a special day. Well as we were walking up to pay the bill the waitress came up to me and asked me if I meant to leave a $20 bill. I told her yes, Merry Christmas. She was so surprised and thankful but it just surprised me because I figured other people would have been generous like that on Christmas too but from her surprised reaction I guess I was wrong. Ben said he wasn't surprised b/c the tip that had been left on the table before us was only 2.50 so he imagined people didn't think of doing anything extra for the holiday. Oh well....it was just funny to me I guess.

Anyway....so we got there around 3pm. When we first got there I noticed too that my dad wasn't wearing glasses and I asked him if he went back to contacts. Turns out he had some sort of lasik surgery-not lasik but PDK or something like that that is basically the same output. It was weird b/c I am so used to seeing him with glasses!

I had set up my laptop b/c we were scheduled to meet my brother on Skype at 4:30pm to say hello and I played Christmas music through my iTunes in the mean time. And of course we were watching Luke run all over the place!

Here is cute little Luke:

At 4:30pm Shaun got online and we had about 20min to talk to him before he would have to go b/c he had to go to work. It was 6:30am Dec 26 in Japan and usually he is just in a T-shirt when we chat b/c it's really late or after he woke up on the weekend but he was all ready for work. So we talked and tried to catch up. I had some gifts for the kids and my dad that were from him too so we had my dad and the kids open the gifts so Shaun could see. Then we all took photos with him-photos of us next to him on the laptop! They actually came out ok which was good. Here is one of me with him and one of the kids with him:

After we talked to Shaun it was time to eat. It was nice that we all sat around the time together. By the time dinner was done, Tara was fading fast so Ben asked Rita if it would be ok for us to give her some gifts to keep her awake. She said it was ok so we started giving out our gifts and gave Tara, Luke, my sister and some of the presents for my grandparents out while we waited. Then when my dad and Rita joined us I gave my grandparents their "big" gift which was cell phones. I had found that Verizon has a special "senior citizen" cell phone that is perfect for them b/c it's really we want them to have one for emergencies-not general conversation. I had a discount which got me the phones for free and cases for less than $20 and I added them each as a line to share our minutes since we have more than we use-plus most of the family has Verizon so if they use them to call us it doesn't cost or use minutes anyway. They both liked the phones and seemed happy to have them. Hopefully it works out and they will be able to use them without too much trouble too!

After, I gave my dad and Rita their gifts. When we were talking to Shaun we gave my dad his big gift which was Sirius radio and gift cards for the subscription but I also gave my dad a boom box to use it with and then I made them some photo gifts they really liked and Rita seemed to really appreciate which made me happy. I was worried they wouldn't like them as much as I thought and I put so much time into them that I was afraid if they didn't like them it would make me upset but it all worked out. I made 12x12 pages of photos of them and some of their wedding and put them in a picfolio Max album-they looked beautiful and I can't wait to do some for myself. So far I have only done them for people. I also gave my sister a 12x12 picfolio max album and put a few pages in hers to get started too. This way with both of them, I can make pages for special occasions and just give them the pages to slide in later!

Back to Christmas....so we continued with gifts all around. Ben got some movies and an Xbox game, I got some movies, a DS lite game, a CD, and some wizard of Oz ornaments. I also got an eagles dog tag engraved "To Aunt Colleen, Love Tara Go Eagles Go" from my niece for Christmas which I love. I can't decide if I want to put it on my keys, wear it occasionally or just keep it safe so not to lose it!

Desserts were out when we were done gifts! We had a few bites of this and that but then we had to leave b/c Ben had to work the next day and it was already 8pm so we packed up, said our good byes and we were on our way!

Here are some photo highlights from the evening:

Luke was really into opening gifts this year-he wanted to help everyone and enjoyed it himself:

And THAT is my Christmas 2007!

I will do another general update and one for my work stuff too!

ta ta for now!!