Holiday recap

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's happened. I was ... what's a nice word? ... lightly "chastised" today for not being very diligent about updating my blog.

Rightly so. I admit, the holidays got the best of me. Between holiday programs at work, holiday shopping (God bless you, Internet), pre-school programs, and the holiday travel itself, it's been a doozy of a 17 days.

So here's a quick overview of the Christmas season in the Aalberts house:

On Friday, December 12 Owen and I went to see "Franklin's Family Christmas" at my theater with Owen's good buddy Philip, and Philip's mom Kelli and sister Jenna.

The show was cute and involved a "12 Days of Christmas" sing-along that made me wish I could wind back the clock and add it to a "Cocoa and Carols" show with my college show choir.

And there was face painting. Here are the boys done up like reindeer.

The following Tuesday was Owen's holiday party at his pre-school.

On Saturday the 20th, Amy and I got out for our Christmas treat, "A Rockapella Holiday," a fantastic Christmas show also at the BCPA. I'd first taken Amy to a Rockapella show when we lived in Ann Arbor, but this was even better. Just take a look at what they did to "The Driedel Song" and try to argue this isn't fun.



In the face of an advancing winter storm, we left for Iowa City on Monday night. It turned out to be a great idea as the winter weather ended up stranding Auntie Pam in Bloomington for the Christmas celebration.

Getting there a night early also gave us some extra time to do fun things like meet up with our good friend Jeff for lunch ...

... and have a little down time before going to Owen's Grampie's retirement party on Tuesday afternoon.

Grampie was richly honored for all of the terrific work he's done for The University of Iowa, from working in the General Counsel's Office, to being Business Manager, Interim Director of Facilities, and his current work managing the university's tax work. We all had lots of fun ... and Owen and Maya did a great job entertaining the crowd.

We then settled in for a nice Christmas celebration with the Ives. There were lots of

Pictures ...
Fancy Christmas outfits ...

And very tired babies ...

We drove home on Christmas day, finding out there was good reason for Maya's fatigue. When we got home Maya threw up ... truly a harbinger of things to come.

That night Pam came over. We'd managed to pack her Christmas presents into our car, so we enjoyed a larger family Christmas as we opened our own gifts that night.

On Friday we drove up to Grandpa and Nana's house outside of Chicago.

We had a nice dinner with the larger Aalberts clan on Friday night, but then I started feeling a little sick almost immediately after the meal was through. Feeling mostly dizzy, I went to bed at 7:30.

Over the course of the night the bug Maya carried with us back to Illinois caught up to everyone else.

My discomfort (how can I put this in a delicate way?) passed right after Owen got up ill with Amy at 3:00. At 4 we had Owen and Amy packed up into the car and were on our way to the ER, where Amy received a bag of fluid, and Owen some meds to help him restore his hydration.

We all recovered pretty nicely, though, enjoying more fun with my family. There were more naps as usual, especially as Nana came down sick the next night, but it proved to be a memorable weekend marking Grandpa's return to the pulpit for the first time since his Nov. 17 heart surgery. Daniel and I sang several times as a part of the service, making it a pretty special morning for all of us.

We went home on Monday morning, enjoying the warmer weather. And I returned to work on Tuesday, biking in ... a sharp contrast to what would have been possible when it was -5 degrees out just five days earlier.

Lastly, allow me to introduce you to the newest addition to our family, Owen's handsome new Betta fish he has named Porcupine. Owen Maya and I went down to the pet store and picked out Porcupine on Tuesday night, settling him into the little tank Owen got for Christmas.

Owen's been wanting a fish for a while, and we seem to have picked a winner, if by "winner" I mean, "A fish who survived his first night."

We'll keep you posted.