For those of you that have not heard, the holidays are over. Unless you bundle MLK day in there with Chirstmas, Hunnakah, Kwanza, the Winter Solstice, and New Year's Day. Gabriel and Colby don't, so I won't. Not that I'm not looking forward to it... If you're interested, we made a big arc around Virginia and visited both sets of Grandparents for Christmas. We started out at home on Christmas day and the boys had some time with Nanna Cole. They got their gifts from Mom and Dad and from Santa Claus that morning, destroying half of them and portions of the house in the process. After we showed them all of their goodies, we packed up, piled into the van, and told them they couldn't play with any of them until we got to the valley. Thanks to the DVD player in the van, this wasn't even a problem.

We rolled into Weyer's Cave, VA at around 5:00 pm and I dropped the kids and Steph off at Memaw's, then scuttled up the highway to Harrisonburg, where we stayed for the night at the Candlewood Suites - nice hotel, by the way. It took me about an hour and a half to make the round trip and by the time I got back, Steph's uncle Donn and aunt Cathy had fried up some Christmas Oysters. I have to say I was almost disappointed that they had just finished them as I pulled up because it meant I might have to eat one. I am not an oyster fan. I made my plate and filled it with side dishes, hoping no one would notice that I had only grabbed a couple of the smaller oysters draining on the bed of paper towels on the counter. They turned out to be excellent and I ate several helpings of them. I wasn't sure who to complement because I didn't remember which plate I had gotten them off of, but whoever cooked them had done an excellent job.

After the meal, presents were opened by the rabble of crazed midgets that had been smuggled into the house by proud parents. There was a flurry of motion and a cloud of wrapping paper. Surprisingly, none of it evolved into fist fights or screams of "Mine! Mine!" and no one cried for very long. The kids all got too many presents and had them all open and scattered around the room with frightening and inexplicable speed as the "grown-ups" sat by in their recliners, cheering them on with shouts of "Who has a knife? Why are there so many wires in kids toys?" The coolest toy of this night was the remote control helicopter. Impressive.

We spent the night back at the hotel in Harrisonburg checked out late the next morning. Before we left, we let Gabriel play with his remote control motorcycle in the parking lot. That thing was wicked cool. It needs a lot of space to get going straight, but once it's under your control, it really is a marvel of modern toymaking. It's a real motorcycle, so it has a gyroscope in the rear wheel to keep it upright. No training wheels. Coolness. After that, we met Steph's dad at Five Guys for a day-after-christmas burger and fries. Yum.

Feeling bloated, but satisfied, we departed the valley. After a really long drive, we popped in to my brother's house in Richmond to meet my parents. Tommy was feeling sick, but we opened presents and let the kids play around for awhile. It had been Mom and Dad's plan to go to Five Guys for dinner because my brother only lives a few blocks from one. They also planned to follow it up with some Cold Stone Creamery, which sits right next to the best burgers ever, but our whole family was still in beef shock from lunch, so we had to nix it and go with the Cheesecake that they had brought along. Mmmmm. Cheesecake factory.

We went back to the grandparents' house and opened even more presents and crashed for the night. One of the presents that excited the boys was the Cadillac Escalade ride-on car. We let them ride it around in the dark for awhile, but eventually, we had to let them pass out from exhaustion. The next day, we took it easy. At least, I did. Steph is still feeling her way around that concept. I slept in until 11:00 and never really understood why I should feel bad about it. I still don't. :twisted: While I slept, the women of my extended family plotted a trip to the northern VA/DC area to hit the IKEA. You snooze, you loose, I guess.

They left early in the morning and got back late at night. Dad and I kept Gabriel, Colby, and Nora company all day. They played outside until they were beat and then passed out by the time the mommies got home.

That wrapped up our trip and we left the next day. I had some more time off, so we just had some relaxing days at home before I had to go to work. Gabriel went back to school that Tuesday and picked up some extra gifts in the form of bacteria or viruses and brought them home to the family. I ended up not having to go back to work because I couldn't stay out of the bathroom for the next four days. Happy holidays.