And......We're Back

Happy holidays everyone. Can it be that Christmas has come and gone for another year? It's hard to believe that something that takes weeks of preparation is gone in a blink of an eye. But, just because Christmas is over doesn't mean the spirit of the season needs to be packed in the attic with the tree and decorations until next year. I'm going to try hard to keep that feeling of joy and goodwill throughout the year, minus the stress of holiday prep.

We had a wonderful and exhausting holiday. We've been traveling to see friends and family and friends and family have been traveling to see us. I think I did 20 loads of laundry and 15 loads of dishes since last Friday, with two more rounds of visitors to go. The boys have been running around like Christmas turkeys with their heads cut off. The difference is Christmas turkeys with their heads cut off eventually stop moving.

Jack got the Nintendo DS he asked for from Santa, and Luke got his Roboquad. They are both very happy with their take. Jack, so much so, that he hasn't been to bed before 11:00 pm and has gotten up anywhere between 3:00 am (Christmas Eve) and 7:00 am since last Friday. Can some one teach me how to teach my son to sleep in? Wait, never mind. I know he'll start sleeping in as soon as school starts back up.

Here are two surprise gifts that the boys got:

Can you guess what this is?


I'll end the suspense. It's owl poop. If you enlarge the image and look closely, you can see the bones of the animals that the owl has eaten. The idea is to dig through the owl poop, excavate the bones, and use the guide to identify the little animals that the owl digested. It is gross and demented and the perfect present for boys. Once we excavate, I will post a picture if we get a recognizable animal from the bones.

The boys also got new remote control cars. These cars are the fastest RC cars I've ever seen. Luke barely squeezed the trigger and his car was on the other side of the room before I could stop him. Any toes in his path would have been sheered off. And, because it was chilly and rainy out and because they are boys, here is how they used their new RC cars:



Of course, the jumps weren't always so successful:




Boys and their toys. What are you gonna do?