It was suppose to be my Christmas with MY familiy this year as my parents offered to come to Red Deer for it. I was very excited as this meant I wouldn't have to travel (much) with a new baby. Then my parents decided to get a trip in lieu of Christmas presents for my brother & sister to Vegas - Tyler, Dexter & I were not included in that as they decided Vegas was no place for a baby. I teased them a lot about it saying "Dexter WANTS to go to Vegas" but truthfully I was cool with staying home. Between the logisitics of travelling and the lack of extra bucks I'd rather wait for a trip I could truly enjoy.
So, to take advantage of seat sales my family booked flights to leave on Sunday, Dec 21 and arrive back at 12:30am Dec 25th (yep Christmas morning). No big deal as I'm not much of a morning person. They all had a great time in Vegas but unfortunately, due to fog, the plane was unable to land as scheduled in Edmonton & they were re-directed to Calgary. It was about 4am when they officially new they were going to be given a hotel room and then a flight to Edmonton at 1pm. Tyler or I could have gone to pick them up but their vehicle was in Edmonton, the roads weren't great, the weather was cold & we were both too tired. The four of them got to our place at 4pm, about 12 hours later than expected.
This meant that I was in charge of cooking Christmas Day dinner by myself (well with Tyler) and 3 month old Dexter. Not really as bad as I thought, except that at noon when I went to prepare the turkey, I found it still frozen! It was only like a 10lb turkey so I thought I had given it plenty of time to thaw (as the ham in the fridge for the next night was thawed) but apparently not. Luckily I had time to thaw it via microwave. As icky as that sounds, it worked and the turkey was ready for dinner. It was not table presentable visually but everyone thought it tasted pretty good (except for Tyler who thought it was dry). The major downfall of the plane delay was that my family was exhausted by the time they arrived and it didn't make much for having fun on Christmas Day. So that was a bit disappointing. Luckily Dexter is still way to little to remember much. In case you're wondering, I made the following for Christmas Day supper (Tyler helped as did my Mom once she arrived): turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, buns. I think that's it, just the basics.
For Boxing Day, I invited Willie & Kris over for dinner and games with my family. Again I cooked with the help of my Mom & Tyler. I made a bone-in ham with a pepsi sauce (yep pepsi!, so yummy), brussel spouts with apricot jelly & cashews, apple coleslaw, fruit cocktail cake for dessert and had Kris bring her yam casserole. Willie & Kris brought their new puppy Willow, a golden retriever. Willow & Willie, that'll get confusing for Kris sometimes. Anyway the evening was pleasant & fun. We played some games, crib & sequence I think, while my brother and sister relaxed, texted, etc.
On the 27th my Dad, brother & sister went back to Grimshaw while my Mom, Tyler, Dexter & I set out for Medicine Hat. We got in late-ish as we checked into a hotel for that night (my aunt's husband's family was in town at their place). Made a stopover at my Aunt's but she was sick & the house was full. Met my cousin Bryson's baby Cayden for the first time though he was born back in May. Dropped my mom off at the room and Tyler, Dexter & I went over to our buddy Owen's dad's place. Owen's two sisters were there too which was exciting as Tanille in in Vancouver doing school & Desiree is in Waterloo, Ontario for school. Had a fun night playing "the Office Clue"! Dexter was a little cranky as I had forgotten my breastfeeding cover and it was very difficult to feed him.
Next day we went back to my Aunt's house in Red Cliff and visited with my family there, plus Crystal (my brother's baby mama) brought over my nephew Chaise. He stayed until like 8pm which was cool. Tyler, Dexter & I snuck over to the A&W in Medicine Hat over lunch to see his pregnant cousin Jennifer, her fiancee & her mom. Plus I had a bunch of hand me downs for them. So that was fun.
Drove back to Red Deer on the 29th then went out to Willie & Kris' house for their Christmas with us. Tyrone, Kim, Kira & Tehya were all there as well. We had decided to buy presents for the kids, and then just do a chinese gift exchange with the adults. For supper we just had appetizer things, which were filling but not satisfying if that makes sense. The gift exchange was a little weird as Kim & Tyrone brought two new age books that none of us were interested in but them, I brought two items which I thought were good (diffusers from Body Shop & yummy cheese dip spices from Epicure) but nobody seemed that excited about them, and Willie contributed a snow globe, Jesus themed! Kris did pretty good by bringing a Salt Lamp but unfortunately it was the last gift to be unwrapped so we didn't get to fight over it as we would have. Pretty much everyone in this small group has interests that are too far from each other to have a very successful exhange. It's so much more fun when there is a bigger, more rowdy group. We played some games after this though Tyrone was in a grumpy mood and kept picking at Kim. Then when we started a game with Tyler, Willie, Tyrone & I and Tyler missed his turn by accident it started this huge, unneccessary blowout. Part of me wanted to get involved and stand up for Tyler, but the other part of me decided to take Dexter out of the room so he didn't have to listen to that, especially as I know me getting into it wouldn't have accomplished anything. Shortly after that Willie quite the game and we went home (it was passed midnight anyway).
That brings us to the 30th were we decided to stay home for a night. Very enjoyable, but went by much too quickly. Oh, my mom left early in the morning to go home too.
Then on the 31st we travelled to have Christmas with Tyler's mom Mary in her new trailer. She took possession on Dec 21st and should be living in it all by herself except that Tyrone moved in on the 2nd. Lucky for us, he didn't move in until we had already left! So New Year's at Mary's was pretty laid back & quiet. We had a yummy lasagna for supper, opened presents and played games again. The next day we went for Dim Sum in the afternoon which is always a fun experience as we don't have one in Red Deer. It was fun to take some pictures of Dexter even though he was too little to eat it. Since Tyrone wasn't there & we were filling relaxed and chill at Mary's we decided to spend another night there. That night I accomplished pretty much eating almost all the lasagna and we played more games.
Mary's trailer is a decent space but I have to admit that I'm negatively prejudice against trailers. For one thing, she only owns the trailer not the land so she pays $500+/month to rent the lot in addition to her mortgage. Secondly, I find that they sometimes depreciate in value. Third, usually they are a little substandard for finishings. And last but not least, they have some quirks. One of the quirks Mary found out the hard way, is that all her toilets have to be flushed daily in the winter or else her lines can freeze. She went to Saskatchewan not knowing this and her washer grey water backed up into her ensuite tub. Awesome eh? Then the people who should fix it were gone due to the New Year's holiday. Glad it wasn't me!
I'm happy for Mary to be on her own as she wasn't happy with Robert and you should never settle, but I hate that Tyrone moved in with her straight away. For one thing, he'll be 32 in June and has no excuse for why he can't afford to live on his own. For another, he's kids are still with Kim in Calgary which is 3 hours away. Tyrone kept the van for numerous reasons, but that means that Kim is vehicleless. It just feels like the both of them (Tyrone & Kim) make continual poor decisions, and I wouldn't care about that if there weren't kids who can suffer. Argh!
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