Friday (12/20) Happy last day of school of the decade!! I feel like we limped to this day and I'm so excited to have two weeks off to relax, refresh and enjoy time with my guys. But first, we have to get thru the last day of school. We got up on time and Adrian helped me get AJ up and ready an on the bus before he headed to work for the day. Then I dropped Daniel off at school and came home to get Zak and myself ready for the day. We headed in together since I was subbing for the day in school. I started my day subbing in a 3rd grade class and helping with their pancake breakfast when their teacher came in. Then I headed to Zak's class for the afternoon and subbed for his teacher and ran their party as well. It was a fun but tiring day since they kids were all sugared up and excited!!
After school I ran to Kroger to pick up a quick order of last minute food, then we came home to get ready to leave for NJ in the morning. We decided it's best for us to drive across tomorrow, stay until the service on Monday & head back home. It will be rough but it's what we need/want to do. I focused on doing everything that needed to be done around the house and Adrian focused on packing us up and making sure we're ready to hit the road early in the morning. The boys helped us clean and pack what they could and did a great job of staying out of our way and playing with Rocky while we worked. We all headed to bed pretty early so we can get up and on the road by about 9:30 tomorrow morning. Hoping for a good night of rest!!
Saturday (12/21) Well I got a good night sleep and woke up ready to go with our plan. Unfortunately, Zak had Adrian up in the middle of the night with a raging fever and sore throat. He has clearly come down with what his whole class had last week and is most likely contagious. So while he was up in the middle of the night, Adrian found a few flight options for me to go to NJ alone. I talked with my family and figured out how to fly in Philly, rent a car to share with Jon and his family, and fly out of Philly on Monday around the same time as Jon.
I hurried up and got ready because ironically I was the only one not packed up to leave. Adrian drove me to the airport and my flights went well from here to DC to Philly. I picked up the rental car and headed to my Aunt Joan's house to meet up with everyone there. They fed me a delicious dinner and dessert and I was thankful to spend some time with my parents, Uncle Tom & Aunt Joan. I hung out there until about 9:30 when I needed to head to Newark airport to pick up Jon, Rebecca and the girls. We drove back down to a family friends' house to spend the night there. Thankfully everything worked out great today and I am able to be here in NJ where I need to be.
Sunday (12/22) After a great night of sleep, I woke up to coffee and NJ bagels for breakfast. While I am here for a horrible reason, I am enjoying all of this delicious food. We spent some time with Barbara and Ed and then we got ready to head to Aunt Joan's house again to spend some time together before we headed to the funeral home. We enjoyed being together, eating lunch and watching football, including seeing the Jets beat the Steelers for the first time ever. Thanks for that one Uncle Tony!
In the evening, we headed to the funeral home for the viewing. It was a beautiful service with a lot of friends and family there to pay their respects. It was nice seeing some many people I haven't seen for a while. My Aunt Sue, father & cousin Mark all gave beautiful speeches about Uncle Tony and the Port Authority came to do a final salute. It was a long, sad night but it was nice to be with family. We headed back to Aunt Joan's house when the service was over to have dinner together and enjoy some laughs over some wine. Then I headed back to Aunt Sue's house to spend the night with her and her dog, Barney.
While I was dealing with all of that in NJ, Adrian was here in Ohio with the boys. Zak still wasn't feeling well so he spent the whole day resting on the couch and watching TV. The other boys mostly played video games and watched YouTube and Adrian was able to borrow the TV downstairs for a bit to watch some of the football games. He was excited for the Jets win but bummed that the Cowboys lost, pretty much ending all hopes for the post season for them.
Monday (12/23) After thankfully another great night of sleep, I was up early with my Aunt getting ready for the funeral. My parents picked us up so there would be one less car to worry about and we headed to the funeral parlor for our final goodbyes. Then we went to church for a beautiful mass including a great eulogy by my Aunt Joan. There were also bag pipers from the Port Authority playing outside the church. After the mass, we headed to the cemetary and then to a local restaurant for lunch. I ate quickly and then headed out with Jon, Rebecca and the girls so we could all catch our flights back home from Philly.
While I was there, Adrian was home with the boys and thankfully had the day off from work. Zak wasn't getting any better so we decided he should head in to see the pediatrician. Luckily there was an opening this morning so Adrian took him in only to find out that it is just a bad virus and we need to wait it out. I was honestly hoping for something that could be cured with an antibiotic so we're all healthy for Christmas but no such luck. The boys spent the rest of the day at home playing video games, watching TV and waiting for me to get home.
After two very easy flights I landed in Columbus around 8pm tonight. Adrian came and picked me up and we headed home to see the boys and Rocky, all of whom were very excited to see me. I brought everyone pretzels from Wawa for a special treat tonight and they were all excited to eat those too. We spent some time catching up and then it was time for the boys' night routine. We got them down to bed and then pulled out all of the stuff that our elf was leaving for them tonight, our annual scavenger hunt, reindeer food, a gingerbread house and a gingerbread train. We are hoping that Zak will feel better tomorrow and we'll be able to do all of those things together as a family. After that, I was exhausted so we headed to bed for the night hoping to start fresh with everything in the morning.
Tuesday (12/24) Merry Christmas Eve!! We all slept in a little this morning and then were ready to have a fun day of family fun. Unfortunately Zak still wasn't feeling great so we were somewhat limited in what we could do. Daniel and I made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast tomorrow and we all attempted to decorate our gingerbread house and train. Since Zak still wasn't feeling well though, he couldn't sit at the table to decorate with us so we did part of the decorating today and saved the stuff so he can do it when he's feeling better.
The rest of the day was spent just hanging out and relaxing around the house. The boys played some video games upstairs while Zak watched YouTube downstairs on the couch. I got some stuff done around the house since I've been gone the past 2 days. Adrian and I went to Christmas Eve service at church alone and joked that we felt like we were on a date. We roasted a chicken for dinner in our new oven since Adrian has been wanting to do that since we got it. We decided to postpone our Christmas light scavenger hunt until Zak is feeling better so he can enjoy it too. We did get outside briefly to sprinkle some reindeer food on the lawn for tonight.
After the boys went down to bed, Adrian and I got to work on setting up for tomorrow morning. We put Rocky to bed with them in her crate in their room so she wouldn't be downstairs while we were trying to wrap and set things up. I wrapped the few gifts that we still needed to wrap and Adrian brought up everything that was already wrapped and set it up under the tree. Then he set up Rocky's new crate so it would be ready for her in the morning. We watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Christmas Story" while we worked and were done pretty early. We headed to bed soon after we finished because we know the kids will be up and ready to go early tomorrow morning!
Wednesday (12/25) Merry Christmas!! Shockingly the boys were not up super early this morning, Adrian and I were actually up before them this year. When they did make it downstairs we had some coffee & started our homemade cinnamon rolls and then we opened our gifts! The boys were of course super excited to get the Occulus Quest virtual reality headset that they have been asking for the past two years. We had all of our family members chip in this year to gift it to them since it was pretty pricy, and there wasn't a lot that they were asking for. They did enjoy all of their other gifts which including board games, video games, clothes and gift cards. Everyone said it was an epic Christmas! Even Rocky got some new toys and treats and seemed to enjoy herself this morning.
After opening everything, the kids retreated to the video game area to play with their new VR headset. Adrian and I decided to open my new toy, an air fryer and make something with it. We started small and made pizza rolls & they were delicious!! I can't wait to use this thing to make yummy dishes now. We also opened up some of our new games and checked them out. In the afternoon, we did a video call with my parents and exchanged lots of texts with the rest of the family. Zak is still not 100% so we just laid low for the day, which is our tradition anyway. We played with our new stuff, ate junk food, drank wine and relaxed together as a family. It's what we do every Christmas Day and it's the perfect tradition for us!
Thursday (12/26) After the excitement of yesterday, we were looking forward to a calmer day today. We all slept in a little and then the boys pretty much spent most of their day playing with their new video games on the VR headset and the Switch. Zak is finally feeling better and he was ready to finish decorating our gingerbread houses today! Adrian and I took turns helping him and we all had a lot of fun. I'm glad he's feeling better and am really hoping this is the end of the germs for us for a while!!
After we finished our gingerbread house and train, Adrian and I played a few board games together. We played our final month of Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (we got season 2 for Christmas - yay!) and won the whole season! We did really well, got one of the highest ranks in the game. We also played a new game Adrian bought for me, Takenoko which is super cute and fun! We finished up the night with a bottle of wine and Adrian's Tuscany expansion of Vitaculture which is one of my favorites. The expansion makes it harder and more interesting, definitely a fun upgrade! Other than that, our day was pretty much similar to yesterday, lots of relaxing, junk food and family time. I'm still recovering from traveling so I am enjoying some much needed down time!!
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