Christmas Vaca-part one

So we left our cozy home here in FL on the 19th of December to head up to WI for the holiday season. We left before dinner and were only going to go for a few hours before we stopped, we thought it would be easier on all of us to just have three short days of driving instead of two long ones. So we got up to about Birmingham when Austin hit angry mode, and we pulled off for the night, when I kept telling Dan, "He feels really warm, I think we need to stop for the night." So we pulled off at the first hotel we could find with a decent reputation--and let me tell you reputation doesn't mean much to me anymore! This place looked nice on the outside, but was a total dump on the inside. I would have made us leave if my son hadn't been running a 103 temp!!! That's right, as soon as we got in the room I pulled out the thermometer and got a reading of 103, I just about died. I gave Austin some tylenol and put him down to sleep in his nice clean pack n play, and hoped that he would be better in the morning. I woke up the next morning ready to pack us up and come back home if he was still running a temp of 103, but alas he was in good spirits and only was at 101, which in a two year olds case isn't that bad, so we packed up the car and drove again till Austin had had enough, this time we stopped off somewhere between Indy and Lafayette and we just got off at the first exit with hotels, this night we got a good price at an Econolodge--I know I'm not a big fan just off the name and rep, but this place was nice! I will never judge a hotel by name again!!! So anyway, this night Austin's temp was down to 97! So we woke up the next day and realized how amazing it was that Austin got fed up right when he did, because the freezing rain had started right when we got off. There were tons of accidents and we were safe in our nice cozy and warm hotel!
So the next day we woke up to the coldest weather ever--it was -30 wind chill!!! Dan went out and warmed up our jeep and even pulled it right up to the door to pick us up, but Austin still cried when he got outside! It was so cold! So we also missed a snow storm that hit the Chicago/ Milwaukee area the night before, so when we go up there we were a little worried about traffic, but once again everything was clear and great for us! The only place that it affected us was when we got off for lunch in N. Chicago we got stuck behind a minivan that got stuck because they just weren't equiped for the weather--this is why we own a jeep in case anyone ever wonders. We actually thought about this when we bought our vehicle and still consider it a very important thing for us to have a vehicle that can manuever easily in the snow! So we got in that day and Austin was normal and fine, and we were all safe!
So that's all for today, I will only post the highlights from the rest of our trip, and not keep doing a play by play of everything that happened, I just felt that this story as a whole is a great example of God's blessings on our life. We were so close to so many very bad situations and we happened to miss and avoid them all!

The Holidays!!!

Our stocking filled for St. Nics day

Our tree decorated, and yes I know there is nothing at the bottom, my husband still believes that it is better for Austin this way.

The day of the Iron Bowl--I know Auburn lost, but this was way before the game even started.

Okay, so if you really know me, you know my feelings about Christmas and everything, but I don't believe many people on here really know that about me, so I'm going to just say that I don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, but just as a national holiday. I don't want to get in some crazy fight with someone on my blog about this, but I just need to put that out there. If you want to discuss this further, I am happy to sit down and discuss my feelings with you, I'm just not going to do that on the internet.

So disclaimer out of the way--we are officially decorated for Christmas at our house! We have our two trees up, which I love because growing up we never had one, and I just think they are so much fun, and I don't even care that we are never actually here on the holiday to stick presents under them! Dan even put lights up on the outside of the house, because he always did that at home and feels like that is his part in the decorating. We went out and bought a few more things to put here and there, but I still never feel like its done, but I always have to tell myself to just wait till next year because if I buy everything this year, I will just want to replace it next year with something different! On that note though, is anyone else dissappointed with the decorations out there this year? Everything I see just isn't what I'm looking for at all! So I guess that helps to reduce the urge to decorate further!

Well this past weekend was St. Nicholas day* and I remembered from when I was a kid how my friends would talk about it. The celebration of St. Nics day isn't very popular around our country but it is very popular in countries like Germany, and since I come from an area that is highly populated with people of German decent, it is still celebrated by many families in our area. So thinking back on this, got me to thinking how we never get to use our tree or stockings and I thought, "Hey, why not surprise the fam with St. Nic day!" So I went out last week and sneekily bought things to fill our stockings up with. Austin was easy and then Dan was super easy too, so it took a lot less time than I thought. It also gave me a great opportunity to buy myself the new Narnia movie, sinced I've been dying to see it since it came out in theaters. So I planned on having the stockings filled on Saturday morning when we all woke up, it would work out great because Dan had duty Friday night, so I didn't have to worry about him finding out until he got home. Well I ended up doing it a day early on Friday because, of the way things worked out, but everyone was surprised and we now have a new family tradition. When I told Dan I wanted to do it every year, he thought it was a great idea. Now we just have to try and get it to work every year on the 6th of December! :-) This should be super easy, since we can't even get it to work on a year when it is on a Saturday and Dan is just in training--if you get my sarcasm! ;-)

We still need to take a picture of us with the tree, but I have some of it all decorated. And just after Dan put it together, before we even decorated it so I will leave you with those. Actually, I guess I added them wrong and they are at the beginning so sorry! This is my first real post on here, so I guess I shouldn't expect everything to work out exactly as planned.

*St. Nicholas Day is the 6th of December, the day in which St. Nicholas died, it is celebrated by people leaving their stocking/socks or shoes out at night and waking up to them being filled. This is not a super detailed description, just enought to get you by--google it if you want to know more.

My first post

So I finally decided to join up, and get one of these. It seems that I have a blog to keep up with friends from every phase of life, so now I have one for all my friends from the military. Hopefully this will help me (and Dan) keep in touch with everyone we have met so far on our USMC adventures, and all those to come.
Keep it real, and keep in touch!