Friday, December 28, 2007

Over the River and Through the Woods, Grandma came to us

Ok. This is the last of the What I Did On My Christmas Vacation posts. This blog will soon be back to reporting our regularly scheduled lives. By the end of this post, in fact!

Since Alan could be called to transplant at any day, we can't venture the 3 1/2 hours in the other direction to go visit Grandma & Grandpa Rick. We didn't go see them last year since Alan was just a month old at Christmas, and then soon after that was all the liver stuff, so we haven't been to Grandma's house since... ummm... (calculating).... basically.... a really long time. So anyway... Grandpa had to work so Grandma hit the road on Boxing Day and came to spend a couple of days with us.

First things first, everyone opened presents:
Ya think Dale liked what Grandma brought? (Hint: a giant smile followed this gasp)
Sorry for catching Grandma's mouth in a funny position. She was reading the tag. "TO Grandma, from Dale..."
A fun time was had by all. At least those on this end of things. ;)

It was back to just the 4 of us by lunchtime today, and we decided it would be in everyone's best interest if we got out for a while. The week before Christmas and New Year's is notoriously the longest week of the year. Add to that the fact that it is too cold to go outside, and oh yeah... waiting on the call for a transplant and we're about to climb the walls around here!

So after lunch we headed out to go shopping. Greg and I each had a gift card from his mom we were ready to spend, plus some other stuff we wanted to do. I got to go first, and was very pleased with my finds! I was especially glad to be able to throw in a new necklace/earring set.

Greg was next. He got himself a new pair of shoes for work. On the way out of the store we did a little extra shopping for a new workshirt or two for him, and this is where things somehow suddenly went awry.

A whining baby, some miscommunication & assumptions, & those darn waiting-for-transplant nerves joined forces and we ended up ... out-of-sorts with each other. It wasn't enough to be a fight, but it sure was ... something.

We left the store with shoes only, no shirts. We got into the van, still discussing the whole thing, but not really communicating much of anything. You know... going in verbal cirlces.

So the verbal circles turned to real circles as we left the parking lot, still going over the whole shirt/no-shirt debacle while severely miscommunicating about where we were going next. We drove in one huge circle, stopping halfway to park and regroup. In our dumb luck, Alan had gone to sleep while we drove, so we went back to the store and I went in and picked out two shirts. What had been so confusing suddenly turned simple, and I was in and out in less than 5 minutes. Whew! We both felt better after that.

Greg dropped me off at the bookstore and he and the boys did some man-shopping. Alan was even able to get in a decent nap during it all! By the time they picked me back up, we were all getting hungry. We all could have made it home except for Alan, and since we hadn't packed any snacks for him, we decided to get something to eat before heading home. Too bad for us, huh? ;)

We went to CiCi's for a pizza buffet. Alan ate great: he had the topping off 3 slices of sausage pizza! Greg had filled a drink for Alan and I was dripping his water to him through a straw. I noticed he seemed to be extra thirsty because he kept asking for more. Upon closer inspection I found out Alan wasn't drinking water at all. It was Sprite! No wonder he was loving it so much! Lol.

When we first sat down to eat, I said I was not leaving there until I got a cinnamon roll, because they are just that good. The pizza is fine, but the cinnamon rolls? Oh YUM. Just as they were putting out a fresh pan, Dale was ready for dessert. Greg helped him go through the line again and they brought back cinnamon rolls for all of us. Not too much later, I went back for another slice or two of pizza. By the time I had finished my seconds and reached for my cinnamon roll I was shocked to find them all gone! Dale had eaten every one of them! And of course, the pan on the buffet was empty as well. *Sigh* I should have learned from this trip to CiCi's not to put my cinnamon roll on the same plate as Dale's. Eat mine once, shame on you; eat it twice, shame on me! (isn't that how that saying goes?) And even though I had said I wasn't leaving without a cinnamon roll, I decided to go without, because at the rate they were restocking the buffet tonight, we just might still be sitting there waiting!

Alan has turned into a pretty whiny traveler. The ride home tonight was no exception. A little over halfway home I was so surprised to see Dale had fallen asleep! He hardly ever falls asleep in the car! And the stinker Alan made it all the way without sleeping a wink. Here was the state of things in the backseat when we got home:
A rarity, indeed!

1 comment:

Kristin said...

Haha, I loved the Sprite discovery!!! I think that described the picture of the backseat. He's hyped up on sprite!