Part 2 (still fighting with pictures)

Part 2

As we were driving along, we looked behind us, and could see the kids dancing, and singing, and being crazy in the van behind us. I don’t know what they were listening to at the time, but by the motions we could see, I think it may have been The Chicken Dance! We were glad they were having fun, but also glad that we didn’t have to listen to all the FUN!!! ;-)

We had barely been driving at all, it seemed and the girls text us and say someone needs to go potty! So we pull off the road at the next exit, and potty and get gas. We hadn’t even gotten to Chattanooga yet! While we were stopped, I looked over and saw the sun in the sky as it was beginning to fade away. It was beautiful, so I had to get out and take a picture or two. At one point Sariah jumped out of the van and ran toward me to scare me! Silly girl! I wanted to get her picture, but she was too fast, and I only got her backside as she raced away from me and back to the van.

We started out the 5 hour drive several hours later than we’d hoped, so when we arrived in Gatlinburg, it was already dark. Very pretty to see all the Christmas lights and decorations for the season, but it would make it a bit more difficult to find our cabin. Apparently Liam started yelling out, “It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!” when he saw all the lights. We had to first fine the rental company to sign in and get the key to our cabin and directions. Then we were off! We drove through town, and began up the mountain roads. They had snow several days before and said there had been some problems with the road our cabin/house was on, but it had gotten cleared that day or the day before, so we should be o.k.

The road was steep and narrow, with lots of switch backs. The kids weren’t comfortable with that, and quite frankly neither were we, so I swapped out with Amanda, and I drove the van up the mountain road, following behind Bill. At the first stop sign, it was quite steep and a pretty sharp turn. The next corner we had to turn at however, was really steep, and at a hard angle. The road had was a bit slick, and my turns were just spinning for a moment. I got a bit nervous at that point. It was probably good that it was dark, as I couldn’t really see how high up we were going, or how far down we’d fall if we perhaps went off the edge of the road. The kids were all very quiet, and that was good as well. All I needed was to hear them all talking about dying or something!! Thankfully, they didn’t start talking about how scary it seemed until after we stopped and got out of the vehicles. We found our cabin, after driving down quite a steep incline as well, and it seemed you looked straight down the mountain to all the lights of Gatlinburg below.

We unloaded and made dinner and settled in. (Bill finally ate an actual meal, and enjoyed it!) After dinner the kids enjoyed the hot tub. Bill and I went back to town, to shop for the rest of what we needed for food, etc. for the next several days. We didn’t get back till around midnight, and as a passenger, it was a little bit different drive. You know how it is when you aren’t the one in control of the vehicle... I was a bit more nervous. We arrived back and we all settled in to bed for the night. The cabin had a master bedroom upstairs with a king size bed, and on the main floor the bedroom had 2 queen sized beds, and the sofa in the main room folded out as well.

Thursday – Christmas Eve day

Bill had done a little searching on the internet about what activities might be fun for the family. We had purchased tickets for an indoor water park, so off we go in our bathing suits, down the mountain to the water park. Winter coats over bathing suits, what a look! We had fun at the water park, but would I do it again? Probably not... the water in the lazy river was a bit chilly, and the big water slide was WAY COLD!!!!! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

The best part was the kids wading pool, it as shallow enough to stay warm, and then, the hot tubs. Those were nice, and big enough that when we first got there, (when it opened at 11:00) there weren’t very people at all, so we mostly could do whatever we wanted. Liam liked the warm water in the hot tubs, which weren’t HOT, but nice. They were quite big, you could almost swim in them, and Liam kept wanting to play tag. We had been there nearly 2 hours, and were quite cold unless we were in one of the hot tubs, so, at that point, we sort of decided, if we wanted a hot tub we could just go back to our cabin and use the hot tub there!

We went home and showered and dressed in warm clothes, and we considered going out somewhere to see some sights, but after he late night the night before, we were all a bit worn out. Bill needed a nap, so we decided to stay ‘home’ and prepare for Christmas. Sariah had a project she needed to finish – she was making a sock monkey for Rebekah. She needed a little help, so, I ended up doing a lot of the hand stitching of the parts to attach them, and then, She decided she didn’t want the hat to be matching (part of the sock). She asked if Amanda might make a crocheted hat to match the one that she’d made for Rebekah for Christmas, to go along and match for the sock monkey. So... as a result, we spent most of the afternoon in the bedroom upstairs. Rebekah had to hold down the fort downstairs, with all the other kids. Thank you Bekah! She made Christmas cookies with the kids. (I had bought some gingerbread cookie mix, but forgot to bring the cookie cutters with us! And then she did the pre-made sugar cookies.

We had a casualty... Rebekah burnt her finger on the cookie pan the last batch. It was really hurting her and throbbing/burning for hours. I wanted to get some ice, so I ran outside and got some snow. Snow - Natures ice pack. As soon as it melted, her finger would begin to burn. It had begun to sprinkle, and was supposed to rain quite a bit that night, so I got some more snow and put in the freezer, so we'd be sure to have enough for her. She took some medicine to help reduce the pain, but was still up nearly every hour all night long in pain, and needing more snow/ice.

After this we prepared for our traditional Christmas Eve Bethlehem dinner. Where we eat simple foods that might have been eaten by Joseph and Mary and the people in those times – we sit on the floor and eat by candle light. We have fish, and cheeses (like a brie) and grapes, and crackers. After we have eaten our meal, Bill reads us the Christmas story from Luke 2. We started this years ago when we lived in Japan, and it has become our family tradition. We never miss a year. We did this when we had Christmas with grandma and Grandpa in Virginia one year. We did it the year Bill was deployed, I prepared the meal and he called us and I had borrowed a speaker phone so we could all hear him and he was there a little bit more than just in spirit. It was special to be able to hear him read the Christmas story to us, even though he was so far away. So, even though we were in a cabin/house in the woods, we bought the food to have our special dinner.

After that part was over, the kids quickly like to move on to the next tradition of opening up their new Christmas jammies! Then after everyone gets dressed and ready for bed, we let them open one more present. Last year we started doing a secret santa between the kids (the idea is then I don’t have to try to run all over town and help the kids all buy things for each and every one of their siblings... not that it isn’t a nice idea, but it gets hard with all 6 kids). Anyway, so we let them open the present from their secret santa. Then we had to get 6 kids settled and down to sleep for the night in preparation for Santa to come.

Bethlehem Dinner

Christmas Eve...

We started the day out with a trip to the movies. Hannah has been begging us to take her to see Desperaux. It was a really cute movie! We came home, (stopping off for a few last minute items) made some more cookies, wrapped some more gifts and then started to prepare our Special Christmas Eve Dinner.

We got the idea years ago, and it has become our family tradition...

The Bethlehem Dinner is fairly simple. We light candles and turn out the lights. We eat simple foods, trying to eat things that perhaps they might have eaten back then. We eat fish (we just fry a simple salmon filet), grapes, cheese, simple crackers and bread, and as we ate, we talked about what this dinner represented - Joseph and Mary, journeying to Bethlehem...
After we eat our meal, we all sit back and listen to the Story of the Nativity from St. Luke in the Bible. Normally Bill reads. This year I don't really know if it was a way to involve Rebekah more, since it could be our last Christmas together with her for a while (or at least with just our family)... or perhaps it was because Liam was being a pill, he had not napped all day and so Bill held him and tried to have him re-enact the Nativity story with one of our little Nativity sets. It was nice.

After dinner we let the kids open pj's (they all have fun, seeing what kind of jammies they each get), then everyone changes and puts on their new pj's. This ear when they all started asking to open just one more gift... we decided that we'd let them open the present they got from playing secret santa - when they drew each other's names. It was sort of funny this year - Liam had Marissa, Marissa had Hannah, Hannah had Sariah, and Sariah had Liam... then the two older girls managed to draw each other's names. It was cute to see what they came up with. They both did a little scrap book for each other - Amanda did a best friend theme, and Rebekah did a sister theme. Both of them were partly to say I love you, and also so that they won't forget each other next year.

We sent kids upstairs to get setteled down, and let them take the small tv/dvd player up to the little girls room where the 4 younger kids all attempted to fall asleep, while watching a movie. Liam eventually fell asleep, then later Hannah and Marissa fell asleep. I think we were upstiars in bed by 11:30 pm or possibly a bit before. That's earlier than normal even! ;-)

I didn't fall asleep until after midnight, and Liam came in around 2:30 am. In between Hannah would get up and go to the bathroom... or go look at the clock in Sariah's room. They had been discussing what time we could do presents (how early in the morning they were allowed to wake us up!), we'd told them bsolutely not before 6 am! I had tried to get away with 8 or 9 am, but I was out voted!
At about 4 am, I heard Hannah go and report back to Sariah (they were both awake from about midnight on), that they only had about two more hours left to wait... I think I was awake just about every hour all night long. Bill woke up a little before 5 am. I woke up hearing the kids across the hall, then heard Rebekah get in the shower, so Bill figured that really the only one asleep in the whole house was Liam and he wasn't going to be happy no matter what time we woke him up... (and perhaps Amanda), so... we were all awake and downstairs for presents, just before 5 am! (ugh!!! I am NOT a morning person!) ;-)
Before 7 am, I had baked monkey bread (that I'd prepared the night before) and cooked Bacon (in my new pan's that Bill surprised me with - since when I cooked bacon last week for quiche, it burned and stuck to the bottom of our frying pan, my 10-11 yr old pans, were done for!). That's a red letter day! First of all, that I'm up and moving, let alone ready to eat, and certainly not cooking before 7 am! I usually prefer to eat breakfast around 10 am - I'm real good for Brunch! ;-) I would rather not eat early, and I don't usually (hardly ever, if I don't absolutely have to), make breakfast!!!!! Bill is the breakfast person at our house. Now that the kids are older, sometimes they will either offer to cook breakfast, or we can beg them to cook breakfast, but you can ask my kids, I don't cook breakfast!!!

Anyway, we all took a break from playing and reading, (except Liam, who is having a love afair with his Thomas the Tank Engine train table and train stuff (Bill/ I mean Santa, got a really great deal from someone on Craigs List). It has been the hit of the day!!! He played for hours and hours on it!), to eat some breakfast and then everyone was back to playing by 7:30 a.m. or so. Hannah and Marissa were even dressed and outside riding scooters that early! Yikes! I thought it was cold!!!
Rebekah was absolutely thrilled that she got a laptop computer... We weren't so much since that is just one step closer to her going off to college... :-( Amanda is thrilled with her new phone! Of course the fact that her old one litterally broke in half about a week or two ago almost messud up her Christmas! Bill was able to find a phonne someone was giving away on free cycle, and it was the same brand as one of our old one's so we were hoping the old charger woud work on it. It has managed to hold her off, and not let her know for sure about wether or not she was getting a new phone or not from Santa... Sariah was not so happy that she didn't get the cell phone she was hoping against hope for... but she got a fun new camera to be able to take all the pictures she ever wants.
This afternoon we went to the movie again and saw Bedtime Stories (aside from a small amount of bathroom humor), it was a very fun movie!!!

We had a very good day over all, and especially the fact that we are all very tired!!! I can't believe anyone is still awake! I want to go to bed! (and Christmas eve.after I get the phone call back from one of my mom's - I hope quite honestly that she's not in labor, since I am not in top form, and wont' be as good a help to her as I normally would be), I will be off and can hope for a full nights sleep!