Mark & Carrie's Christmas Vacation

We had a WONDERFUL time with Mark's family! There were a few little bumps, but otherwise a really good holiday. I got to enjoy my first taste of yorkshire pudding, breaking open crackers (not the kind you eat), and trying to find the pickle gift and other fun Peeples traditions ;) Mark got to enjoy some intimate time with the toilet and rumblies in his tummy.

Mark and I left for his parent's place on Friday (the 21st) after work. Mark showed up to pick me up with the car packed and loaded and we were on our way. Other than a few traffic issues, it was an uneventful drive. We were glad not to be heading the other direction as there were quite a few accidents that blocked and slowed lanes of traffic. We did stop off at Mark's favorite burger joint in Seattle to grab a bite - it's our tradition to stop there when driving to his parents. We also visited the nearby grocery store for some cough drops for me.

Saturday and Sunday were great! We relaxed, ate great food, watched a movie, took naps, visited with everyone, etc. The only down side (at least for me), was the cough I acquired before we left. It kept me up every night quite a bit (hence the naps). Mark's mom gave me some mega cough syrup but it didn't seem to make a dent.

Other than the cough, the trip was great... until Monday (Christmas Eve). Mark wasn't feeling too well and by mid morning laid down on his parent's bed. By noon he had thrown up once and pretty much enjoyed that ritual for the rest of the day. I stayed with him and read to him for a while, watched some tv while he rested and got him whatever he needed. I felt so bad for him it made me want to cry! Throwing up is the worst!!

Mark said it was okay if we left him for a short time to attend the Christmas Eve service that evening, which was very nice. Although I was sad to be there without Mark. Everyone was. Jean (Mark's mom) leaned over to me during the last song and said it was always Mark's favorite part because it was the end of the service ;) It was implied that Mark seemed to have double the excitement as anyone else, about Christmas and especially presents. So there was lots of talk about how sad it was that he wasn't able to enjoy the day.

That night we all gave Jack & Jean the camera we pitched in for them for Christmas. We stood in the living room and tried to talk loud so Mark could here from the bedroom. I also took a few pictures and showed them to him.

Later, after the stockings were hung by the fireplace with care, we all headed to bed. Actually, by that time the stockings were stuffed with gifts (apparently Santa showed up before we even went to bed) and were placed nicely on the dining room table. In Santa's defense, there really were too many of them to all hang near the fireplace.

Anyway, that night Mark slept poorly, but didn't throw up any more. Between his not feeling/sleeping well and getting up the middle of the night and me coughing half the night, we were quite the pair. But morning finally came and we went upstairs to join the rest of the family. After nibbling on a yummy cinnamon pastry and consuming a little coffee (Mark opted out of these 2 treats), we roused Adrienne (Mark's sister) and all gathered in the living room to open our stockings. It was fun for me to see the family routine on Christmas morning. It was pleasantly very similar to my families'. All the little gifts were really nice!

We then moved to the kitchen for breakfast of egg casserole (again, similar to my family). Some of us got dressed and some of us didn't, but after breakfast and cleaning up, we opening gifts. That was really fun!! Rian (only 2 years old) got a little overwhelmed part way through so went down for a nap. During which time Mark I were instructed to just keep opening gifts because we had brought ALL ours gifts for each other, and there were quite a few. Mark and I laughed when we discovered we got each other the same gift, a cool camera tripod. And appreciated that we shared the same idea and had gotten each other warm fuzzy bathrobes. We both were very pleased and excited about our Christmas gifts, from each other and the rest of the family. Everyone was SO thoughtful!!!

The gift opening culminated with Adrienne opening a much needed laptop from her parents. She was pretty excited and everyone else knew about it so we enjoyed watching her as she very pleasantly realized what it was.

After gift opening we moved into different activities. Mark got out his Playstation (he brought it because he was convinced he would be getting a game he wanted). Apparently he was right ;) I started getting us packed as he was feeling better, but not 100%.

We had dinner at 3pm and it was VERY yummy. It wasn't the traditional turkey, which was kind of nice and this is where I enjoyed popping open cracker, which included a paper crown... they all did and was a tradition to wear your gold paper crown through dinner. This is also where I tried my new favorite thing, yorkshire pudding!! Seriously, it was SO good!! And of course, my place setting had a napkin in a silver napkin ring that had my name on it. It's a tradition in the Peeples house that when you marry or are birthed into the family you get a napkin ring with your name on it. Jack & Jean had brought mine to set up on a table at our wedding reception so I had known I had one, but it was really neat to see it there. It's a fun reminder of how loved and accepted I am by this new family!!

Mark and I left at 5pm with the car loaded, wind blowing outside and light rain. Mark was worried about how he would do on the drive, but he did great!! I drove and we stopped only once. We had heard rumors of snow in Portland, but called ahead and found out that there was snow falling most of Christmas day, but nothing stuck. We ran into snow fall quite a few times between Seattle and Portland and only about a 5 mile stretch where there was a little on the road, but otherwise it was just really wet.

We got home at 10pm and unloaded the car. Mark immediately laid down because he wasn't feeling well and I turned on some heat, read the mail, and put a few things away before crawling into bed. Mark wasn't feeling well at all, which culminated around 1:30am when he hit the bathroom to throw up Christmas dinner. Poor guy!! I woke up around that time with a coughing fit that lasted for most of the next hour. This was the 5th night in a row of bad sleep, so was pretty frustrating. I got up and went into the living room so I wouldn't wake Mark until it calmed a little.

I was at work by 8am and was able to leave during the day long enough to hit the store for food for Mark and to check in on him. He was doing much better!

We had a rough re-entry back to home, but by the end of last night when we had put everything away, showered, were cozy in our new bathrobes, eating dinner and watching Mark's new Seinfeld DVDs, we were much better. Oh, and I had purchased some appropriate cough medicine for my type of cough and slept just fine last night!! I woke up a few times coughing but not nearly as bad as before. It's the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life but I think I'm in love with it!

The rest of this week should be fun. We have a few activities plan but otherwise plan to relax and take it easy. I'm excited as that is how I prefer to spend my New Years. Nothing like entering the new year fully rested ;)

I'll post pictures later.