Welcome 2009!

Man, what a holiday season.

Our Christmas seasons are usually busy with shopping, wrapping, food preparation, travelling, visiting, cleaning, etc. But the boys still have to be taken care of and that takes up a lot of time during each day. So all the normal holiday work and events seemed to be even more compressed than usual! It led to an exhausting year end that ended on a sad note.

The weekdays before Christmas were a hectic rush of shopping, wrapping, and packing for our two day trip to Brockville and Greenbush. Plus when I got home on the Tuesday Kim informed me that Lukas was for sale and then she promptly left to Walmart for an hour or so. I guess Luke decided that sleep was optional but grumpies were mandatory.

On Christmas Eve we had Kim's mom come up to stay over and we had a relaxing evening as we finally felt ready for Christmas. Too eager to wait, I snuck into the tree and opened my gift from Andrew and was pleased to find a Nintendo DS game called Populous that immediately began playing. Ah, the memories of my youth! Its a remake of a game from the late 80s I played then.

Christmas morning was a rush to open stockings, presents, have breakfast (frech toast), and pack up for the afternoon trip to Greenbush. The boys weren't into opening gifts yet; the noise of the paper didn't seem to interest them like we hoped and they were more stunned into silence than anything else.

In the afternoon we went to my parent's place and spent a rousing evening with them and my sister and our extended family. Boxing day we spent with Kim's immediate family and Kim got to try out the Guitar Hero game I purchased for her for the Nintendo Wii we don't own yet. Its surprisingly fun and Kim has already challenged Andrew to a guitar playing duel.

On the 27th we went to Athens to visit my grandmother and aunt, and then in the afternoon we left the boys with Kim's mom and we snuck into town to watch a movie, Jim Carrey's Yes Man which was amusing (3 out of 4 stars). After that we went back home.

I thought the 28th (which is incidently my father's 51st birthday) was going to be a quiet day but in actuality we had to spend it cleaning up the basement to make it livable again for Erin's Kids that were coming to visit for a few days. I could feel Holiday Fatigue starting to set in.

Monday rolled around and early on I drove to pick up the kids and bring them to Carleton Place. We stayed close to home for the next few days, watching a couple movies, playing some board games, and generally having fun. Then on Wednesday afternoon, New Year's Eve, I drove them home.

It wasn't all fun and games; on Tuesday we got the call that my grandfather passed away. He had been sick for a while and its was not a surprise but it still hit everyone hard. So after taking the Kids home on Wednesday Kim and I had a quiet day at home on New Year's day in which we took down the tree and put away the Christmas decorations as we knew we would be busy most of the weekend. The next day we attended the afternoon wake in Elgin, and Saturday headed back for the funeral mass. That's the second grandfather I lost in 2008 and it makes me glad both got to meet my sons before their passing and I only wish Grandpa and Granny of my mother's side had the same chance. They would have loved Sean and Lukas.

We came home from the after funeral reception fairly early; we were both beat from the holiday season and my grandparent's house was packed like sardines from all the well-wishers and family. Saturday night we relaxed with a movie (Rendition it was called... too slow although interesting topic... it boggles my mind that more American citizens (and Canadians for that matter) are not outraged this crap is actually happening... say 2.5 out of 4 stars for entertainment value, 3.5 out of 4 for topic) and Sunday was relaxing with some grocery shopping and getting ready for back to work.

So that's the holiday. As for gifts:

I received enough gift certificates to purchase my desired 24 inch widescreen monitor for my home PC, and my wonderful sister bought me a G15 gaming keyboard which I absolutely am loving at the moment. Kim got me an IPod shuffle for my commute into work, and I got Blokus board game that is easy to learn but lots of fun.

Now, back to the grind!