I-DA-HO

We spent Christmas week, or at least the better part of it in Idaho, up on the ranch. T's grandpa and uncle have a ranch in the small town of Almo. The good and bad of it was there is no cell reception and he doesn't have internet access. It was kinda nice to be away from the technology but after a few days I was starting to get the shakes. Luckily there is a little gas station in town that just this last summer started offering Wi-fi, I made a mental note of that when we visited for the family reunion. I would have visited it more and longer then the one time half hour that I did if the weather wouldn't have been so crappy. But it was just long enough to get my fix.



We stay at grandpa's with T's family, her bro and his family, her parents and her aunt and cousin. T's other cousin's stay up at their parents house, it's just up the lane and a bit from grandpas. On Christmas eve when Santa comes, he brings all of their gifts to grandpas house. So at 9 pm while our kids are still running around, supper excited and nowhere close to being ready for bed, the other family wants Santa to come so that Santa can get to sleep. While their kids are still awake, we had to entice our kids to stay up stairs in bed, really we had to take turns sitting with them until they fell asleep. Meanwhile everyone was walking in and out of the door bringing things in from their hiding places. This will be the last year we're able to do that. I'm pretty sure that seven year old's, if they still believe, will question why everyone is awake and going in and out of the house. After spending a few hours setting everything up I have decided that for now on I'm going to have to set things up prior to Christmas Eve, even though I enjoy the feeling of staying up late putting it all together while picturing the excitement of the kids.



B is at the perfect age for Christmas, she is excited but not soo excited that she wakes up at some crazy hour of the morning. All the kids are about the same age, so it works nicely and we get to sleep until after 7. We take the kids down under blankets so they can't see all the presents, into the kitchen to wait. They all walk into the room at the same time to see what Santa brought. They were all a little confused and not sure which presents were theirs, well b knew exactly which one was hers. After the parents pointed everything out, everyone was pretty excited.



Chaos then took over for the next three hours. B loved her big big barbie house. Ludo and cash were perfectly happy with their toys that Santa left out. So much so that they had no interest in opening any presents. b was buried in presents and was opening them as fast as she could, she was opening, jet's, cash's and hers. Felt kinda bad for the jet, b's first Christmas it was all about her, we helped her open every present, took tons of pictures of her. Cash's first Christmas, wasn't much different. Jet's first Christmas was spent on T's aunt's lap playing with paper and bows from presents. The minute that presents were all open, dinner (which on the ranch is lunch) was started on, actually the turkey was put in the oven sometime in the middle of the night. Just as the kids were taking in their hoard, we had to pick it all up so that we could set the table and eat lunch.



After all the excitement, the realization kicked in that a months worth of build up and preparation were all spent in a few hours time. Ludo hit the jack pot of three or four buzz lightyears (his favorite, "to finaty beond") and the second toy story movie. Ludo spent the rest of the time either playing with his buzz lightyear or watching the movie, but mostly both at the same time. Luckily we had two laptops, one that was constantly playing toy story and one for the other kids to watch what they wanted. The toy story laptop was upstairs until ludo decided that he didn't have time to go downstairs to use the bathroom (he was being potty trained), he didn't want to pee his pants though, so he pulled his pants down and peed on the carpet, and continued on as if that's what your suppose to do.



The weather wasn't just snowy, it was frigid cold! Everyone took their snow gear, we wanted to go skiing/boarding while we were there. Pomerelle is a short drive away and is supposed to be a decent resort. The day after Christmas, the wind was blowing so bad that if the resort had been open the roads probably would have not. The next day, T and I decided not to go, the road we needed to travel on was closed anyway. There was a long enough break in the wind to enjoy some time out sledding behind the four wheeler. B loved it! We had to make cash get in the sled and he was happy as long as it was moving, the minute it stopped he wanted out, but we just made him stay in the sled until his cheeks were frozen solid. This way of sledding is so much better then going down the hill, there is NO climbing back up!

The kids did great together for being stuck inside a house with each other for almost a full week. I do think that if we had stayed another day, or even a few more hours then what we did, grandpa would have booted us out. Don't get me wrong, he enjoyed the company, especially the first couple days but old men can only handle crazy, rambunctious kids for so long. I can only handle crazy, rambunctious kids for so long. And that point had been met.