Christmas vacation kinda sucked this year, but wasn't a total loss. My sister and her family decided to fly out to Beaver Creek the week before Christmas.
There's the first problem. I have to drive two hours and blow $300 a night for two nights (at a different hotel) so that I can spend my vacation to accomodate their plans. Oh, and then I had to get a plane ticket on the same plane as them on the 23rd so I can fly with them to Tampa. Whoops, make that the 24th, because they changed their plans at the last minute in order to attend some fund raiser. Lord knows attending a fund raiser and kissing your client's ass is more important than vacation, but whatever.
So, I get out there on Tuesday and it turns out my brother-in-law has hurt his knee. In fact, he has torn his ACL. He and my sister spend most of the next two days at the hospital. The only fun I really have is skiing with my nephew for about two hours that day, while my niece is at the kiddy care. The next day is dull, as there has been no new snow and the temp has dropped about 10 degrees, so the nephew doesn't want to ski. Since I'm the babysitter while the rest of the family is at the hospital, so if he doesn't want to ski, I can't ski. We play pool and air hockey and video games for a while. It gets old, quick. The only other semi bright spot was a trip out to a place called the Four Eagle Ranch. The hayride was fun and the setup is cool, but Jenna has one of her little tired-tantrums and wrecks the evening.
On Thursday we all drive back to my condo, which they get to see for the first time. We have a nice evening and watch a movie. That goes well. The plan to spend most of the next day at Fat City is mostly ruined by two events. First, we discover that Jenna had gotten pinkeye from the germ factory known as day-care while at the hotel in Beaver Creek. So, we have to run out and get special eyedrops for her, which is an ordeal on December 24th. After that fiasco, I am informed that we absolutely must go shopping for a Nike watch that my nephew can give to his cousin for Christmas. It takes 3 different stores, but we find one. Last, it turns out they have to return the car earlier than expected. Well, we got to spend a little time at Fat City, which the nephew and niece enjoyed, but not nearly as much as I had hoped.
The plane trip is mostly uneventful. A rather interesting woman sits next to me, and we have a nice conversation. She's cute, but married. Figures. We arrive in Tampa at midnight, Christmas Eve. Ugh.
Christmas Day is bleh. My sister and her husband apparently woke up at the crack of dawn and their kids opened all their presents. By the time my folks come over, we're having the 2nd opening of Christmas presents. Then my sister comes over in the afternoon and we have a 3rd present opening ceremony. It just wasn't fun or warm. People are bouncing around instead of paying attention. I have decided that I will not do Christmas again at Kris and Henry's.
I was originally planning on staying there a couple days, but I'm so fed up with them that I go to my parent's place early. I also don't want to become the babysitter, which I knew would happen again if I stayed, especially in lieu of Henry's knee injury.
At that point things get much better. I get to see my Uncle Bob for the first time in about 5 years and his wife Jean for the first time in about 20 years (!). They also brought their son and his girlfriend. Both nice. My mom and some friends have a birthday party for my aunt which was fun - lots of people. Ok, so there were lots of old people, but it was still nice. The only incident of the evening is when my aunt's drunk husband (who is about 60, btw) decides to try to flirt, quite unsuccessfully, with Rob's girlfriend (who is about 22). The original plan for them to spend the night at Linda and Tom's is aborted and they spend the night on the couch at my folk's place, and I get the nice pull-out bed. I offered them the bed, but apparently their parents feared they might fornicate or something, so they were stuck on the couch. Apparently, you can't fornicate on a couch. Whatever.
I spent the last two days with my sister and her young son. We had a cool time the first day when we visited a friend of hers, Andrea, and her husband, Matt. They had a small party and had invited some of their music friends over. Several of them are in bands and were very different from the usual crowd of people I hang out with. It was cool, even if I was a bit out of place.
The last day I spent mostly playing around with my nephew Logan. He's 3 1/2 and pretty cute, but a little behind developmentally speaking. I'm hoping he's just a little slow and nothing worse. He's a great kid.
Well, that's the report. I hope you enjoyed it.
