Christmas vacation

in bullet points.
* making children wait til 3:00 in the afternoon to leave for their grandparents house should be avoided at all costs.
*Putting your 3 year old in the back row seems like a good idea until he starts spitting on his sister and pulling her hair and you have to unbuckle and climb in the back with your arse in the air for all humanity to see to get your hands on him.
*There really is nothing like going home.  There is an aura around my parents house that is calming.  I doubt that is the case for everyone, but it is for me. 
*Upon arriving at my parents, K-Love says "Bye, Mom."  Huh??  I guess it has been awhile since we've stayed with him at Gma's.  He assumed we're were just leaving him there again.
*It was the year of the flashlights.  I got the boys each one for their stockings, my mom and sister-in-law got them each one .  Weird, but they love flashlights so it's all good.  Now I have to buy a load of batteries.
*I love going to my dad's church.  No Christmas is complete without hearing Away in the Manger sung painfully off-key by exuberant young children. Warms my heart every year.
*On that same note-I love my dad's sermons.  You'd think after all the thousands of sermon's I've heard over the years, they would get old.  They don't.  The older I get the more I appreciate his understanding of our Lord and his joy in sharing that gospel.
*I never sleep much at my parents.  It's almost always because I'm up at an ungodly hour with one or more of my siblings hashing out life, love, religion, politics, or just laughing til we're all in tears.  I don't mind the lack of sleep.
*I love going to Chad's parents' house.  It's WAY out in the country and so pretty.  We eat amazingly well, it's always cozy warm and I usually get a nap in at some point while I'm there. Score!
*The annual Dahlke family bowling expedition is always a blast.  I drove 2 hours this year to participate because I had won the previous 2 years and had to defend my title.  Unfortunately, I was way off my game and got beat twice.  Maybe next year?
*And of course, no blog post would be complete without a Caleb story, but this story deserves a post all it's own!
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  I sure did!