Christmas festivities

Joel's Pre-school did a very cute Christmas program. It was amazing how many songs these 3 year old kids were able to learn. And Joel did a great job with the songs and the motions. He was one of the few kids actually singing and doing the right motions to nearly every song. I skipped out of work for an hour (vacation time) to go see the program and it was well worth it. Just another benefit of working from home, as that would never have worked without my arrangement.

We had a family reunion scheduled with Jorie's Mom's family in Lake Geneva, WI, the weekend before Christmas. With the kids continuing to be sick, we weren't sure if we were going to make it. Silas was really the one who was sick the week before the trip, but he seemed to be getting better and it looked like the timing was going to be perfect for the reunion. Then, just as Silas got better, Joel came down with the same stomach flu bug that Silas had just gotten over. So we decided that we weren't going to make it to the reunion. This was extremely frustrating to me, as it seemed that our lives had been put on hold for nearly two months, since the the kids had been sick pretty much non-stop since the beginning of November. And now we weren't going to be able to attend a huge family event. Total bummer.

So then on Saturday, Joel seemed to be feeling a little better, and Annie called us and said that everyone really wanted us to try to come to the reunion, even if Joel was still a little under the weather. So, at the spur of the moment, we decided to go for it. We threw together our stuff in about an hour, got everyone bundled into the van and took off around 4:30pm on Saturday. Just one problem - a snowstorm had started at about 3:00 pm and now we were in the thick of it. And it was BAD driving conditions, about as bad as it can get - lots of snow and some freezing rain too. But we made it to Dubuque, IA, and after that it was just rain throughout Wisconsin.

So we made it to the reunion, 1 day late, and had a good time catching up with family and joining in on games and the variety show and the kids had a blast playing with their extended-family cousins. Joel especially liked playing with the older boys, Jack and Grayson, and Silas loved playing with the littler ones, Annikah and Trevor.

Joel was hilarious at the variety show. We wanted him to go up and recite a few poems he had learned, but he was shy at first. But once he heard his voice in the microphone, he turned into a little performance artist! He didn't want to give up the mic. He loved entertaining the crowd, and he even added an extra poem that we hadn't planned on him reciting, just because he wanted to keep going.

So the reunion was fun and we were very glad we made it. Unfortunately, it was freezing outside and there was hardly any snow in Lake Geneva, so we couldn't really do any outdoor activities. On Monday, we headed back to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Christmas morning, Joel and Silas were very excited to open lots of presents. They received plenty of Thomas the Train toys, some new movies, pajamas, and books too.
Later during the day on Christmas, we put together a Gingerbread house, which Joel really enjoyed. He was very proud of his decorating job.