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Hello! Hoping everyone had a very blessed and merry Christmas! Ours was wonderful, even better than I had hoped. The kids behaved wonderfully, and although now we seem to need a vacation from our vacation, it was so nice to get away. The weather was beautiful! I'll post more about it later. Sorry I didn't update while we were gone...I truly meant to. But the only internet connection was in the business center, not too close to our room, and connection was something like $6 for 30 minutes. I still wanted to go in and update once or twice, but with 4 kids...you know what I mean.

We got home last night about 2:30 am! Whew! Needless to say we didn't go to church this morning but let everyone sleep in. I got up to Sierra having set the table and making frozen french toast sticks (microwaved) for our breakfast. Not exactly the buffet at the resort...but very sweet indeed! She said it was her Christmas present to the family. We realized that yes, we had to clear the table and clean the kitchen afterwards. No one was going to come over and do it for us like on vacation! Bummer. Then we opened our stockings, which were filled while we were gone (wonder who could have done that? :)).

My sweet hubby was very thoughtful in his stocking filling for me. An ornament that expressed how I like to relax; the first series of Everybody Loves Raymond (been wanting that for a while!); and a dolphin necklace he picked up in Jamaica. It's very pretty and has double meaning. It's made out of mammoth ivory, which we admired in the white swan hotel in China. Very sweet. I got him 2 ornaments...one was of superman...because in China a lady at the pearl factory called him superman...and his is my hero. As always, cashews. Some Calvin and Hobbes books. And a Connect Four game. Connect Four? Isn't that a kids game you ask? Yep. Have you ever watched the movie "the Santa Clause" with Tim Allen? If so, it's Brand's weanie whistle! :) If you've seen it you know what I mean.

Jaden was super fun to watch opening his presents. He's opened presents before, as he was old enough to open some of his own baby gifts. But still, pulling them out and ohhhing (not ooh, but oh) and ahhing over his and everyone else's presents was great! We're opening the other gifts we got for the kids either tonight or sometime over New Years...not quite sure yet. Oh, speaking of Jaden, he did very well on his first vacation. We had some firsts for him in Jamaica as well. Wondered what he'd think was going on when we got on a plane, since his life took a good but dramatic change the last time he gone on a plane. But he fared well. He did seem to breathe a sigh of relief and give a small smile when we walked into the house last night. And he didn't complain a bit when I laid him in his bed!

Ok, you didn't log on to see what was in our stockings, etc, but I don't have much more for now! I'm still in vacation mode. Since I have almost nothing in the house (forgot to ask Joni to get stuff, but she did buy milk!) and since I seem to have forgotten how to cook, we had crackers and ham and chips for lunch, topped off with some goodies. Hmmmm....hopefully I'll be back to normal by nightfall! No worries, I'm already planning supper. I think now I'm going to go take a nap and stay in vacation mode a few more hours. I'll post some cute pictures later. Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Oh, P.S....thanks, Joni, for staying at our house and keeping all our animals and things in order! We really appreciated it and it was great to come home knowing everything had been well taken care of. God Bless!