New Years Day Christmas

Sadly enough, nothing exciting to post about our New Year's Eve! I was supposed to work day shift, but of all days got my first cancellation since working for Children's. Who would have thought it would be on a holiday. Didn't even have to be on call. So Rowan and I ran some errands and packed for our weekend of travel! Ed on the other hand, did have to work, so we waited for him to get home and we then packed up and headed to Delafield where we would spend the night with Nana in order to make the New Year's Day travels a bit shorter, not much though!

We dropped Gizmo off with his second set of parents (Karen and Doug), and then headed out to dinner with Nana, Hawk and Linda (Papa was in MI). After dinner we headed home and pretty much to bed. Exciting we are at 28 years old, with a 2 year old, and pregnant (is that enough excuses?)!

On the road again! We were leaving Delafield by 715am today to make our first stop in Cedar Rapids IA to visit the Farley's! Grandma Carol had the flu earlier in the week or we ended up not visiting the nursing home in order to keep all of us in good health. So instead we picked up some lunch at Panera and headed to the Farley residence to visit Grandpa Dick. Blayne, Molly, KB and Grady met us there. It was a rather short visit, but much over due for us! It was nice to see Grandpa Dick and are sorry to not be able to see Grandma Carol, but we had some pictures for him to take and share with her!

Rowan was so excited to see Kieran, it is so cute. She kept grabbing his shirt/shoulder and he kept trying to get away! Poor guy! I think she was just glad to be out of the car too! Couldn't leave out the outtakes! Rowan was quite the ham! And lots of smiles from Kieran too.

Then we all piled in our cars and headed east to Moline IL to make it in time for the Smith Family Christmas. This has been held at a hotel in a conference room for the last several years because there are just too many people to accomodate in a house anymore. Rowan luckily did manage to sleep the 1.5 hour ride to IL, but it took her a bit to wake up and warm up to all the people. But once she did, she was running with all the kids.

We started with eating. What is a holiday celebration without food. We had pizza and pasta catered from the local favorite, Happy Joe's! And of course there were plenty of sweets supplied by all the Smith's as well. Rowan received a few more unnecessary gifts from some of the kids as well! The spoiling continues! And Aunt Terri made the cutest fleece hats for all the kids. I didn't get any pictures of Rowan in hers, but you can see Kieran and Grady with theirs (thanks for the collage Molly)

After eating, Rowan finally got her wish to go swimming. I was lucky to be able to use being pregnant as an excuse to not go swimming because the water wasn't warm! But Dad braved the cold with Rowan! We have now learned that we need to invest in water wings and swimming lessons! (I have just not sat down and called about swimming lessons, but this was the straw that broke the camels back) Rowan loves the water, and she thinks she should be able to be on her own despite the fact that she sinks without support. Tara borrowed us Teagan's swim float, but it kept putting her on her back or tummy. She wasn't good at maneuvering in it. And once Kieran was done in the pool was added his water wings, and she had a little bit easier time. But the girl didn't want to get out of course! But she was shivering and so was Dad!

To give you an idea of the number of people the Smith family needs to accomodate, here are just a few of the current 18 great grandchildren that Papa and Grandma Jan have! And there will be 3 more added in 2011 (all within the same week in March, one of which is in my belly!) The oldest great grandchild is in high school, and the youngest is just a couple months old.

Shortly after swimming, we were packing to head home. We had been undecided as to whether or not we were going to spend the night or not, and decided to go home. We don't have many weekend days home together so we were looking forward to waking up in our own beds the next morning. So we were on our way just before 7pm, and pulled into our driveway around 1130pm.

Despite spending 10+ hours in the car, Rowan did do pretty well. We had a few issues along the way. Our portable DVD player stopped working before we got to IA, so we made a stop or two to buy a new one. We had thought about buying one for the lap for using inside when needed anyways, but will still replace the video cords for our dual player as well for in the car (which is why it stopped working, cords frayed).

Then on the ride home we made the mistake of stopping for gas in Mukwonago, and dropping Nana off in Delafield, because those were the 2 meltdowns that Rowan had. She was just done being stuck in her seat. After a few illegal moves, I was able to get her asleep and back in her seat before too long, and back in the front seat to help keep my husband awake after our long day in the car! We haven't been able to attend these two Christmases for the last couple of years because of work conflicts and what not, so we were happy to be able to see everyone and celebrate. Hopefully next time we will be able to spend more time there than in the car!