Christmas 2008

We survived our Road Trip Adventure, and had a great Christmas in Reno!

I'll admit, it wasn't looking good before we left--Vancouver was fast becoming buried in snow, and we were worried that if this was the situation at our own house, how would the mountain passes look? Luckily for us, the roads weren't awful. We had about 60 miles of snow to drive in from our house to about Salem, then it was (mostly) clear sailing from there. If you don't count the one bout of carsickness (on Zoey's part), the extreme difficulty in finding new animals to work in to the song "Old MacDonald" (on my part) and trying to drive in such a manner that did not make his wife and daughter feel even more carsick (Bryan).

We rented a townhouse in Reno for three days, and I'm so thankful we did that instead of staying in a hotel. We made it to Reno on Tuesday afternoon, and it was great to have a place to spread out in--Alisa and JD's house is so tiny, it would have been hard to cram eight adults and three small children in to their place for three days straight.

Overall, the week was more work than I had anticipated--if I had to do it over again, I'd say we should just hit up the buffet for Christmas dinner. It would have saved my mom and sisters and I a LOT of time and effort! I felt like I spent most of the time in Reno either cooking a meal or cleaning up from a meal. However, while it was not the most relaxing trip on record, it was still great fun to watch Zoey interact with her cousins, Finley (who is three) and Avelyn (11 months). Finley and Zoey ran laps around the house nearly nonstop, and only had a few brief arguments (read: Zoey hitting and Finley whining) over such coveted items as Zoey's new tent and Avelyn's cool new doll stroller. (Avelyn was the only child who did NOT get a turn pushing the stroller on Christmas day.)

As for the drive, Bryan and I learned that our daughter is an excellent traveler, and that if we decide (in the VERY distant) future to emark on another road trip, we won't have to worry about Zoey keeping herself entertained. (And really? I think the carsickness--which resulted in a car seat that stunk of Febreeze mixed with barf the whole rest of the week--had more to do with Bryan trying to drive 80 mph through a curvy mountain pass than it did with Zoey's particular stomach sensitivities.) While she is not much of a napper while riding in the car (surprise, I know), she seemed quite happy to play her See 'N Say over and over, wrap her dolls in various blankets, and look through her books. Granted, I spent 80% of the drive crawling back and forth from the front seat to the back in order to retrieve miscellaneous binkies, sippy cups, and toys, but overall, she was quite the trooper and I was proud of her.

I'm hoping that you all had a happy and healthy holiday season and that, like me, you are looking forward to getting your life back on track now that the holiday season is past!