Christmas Catch-Up

Just returned from South Texas this evening and saw many of you out there have already posted a few things since Christmas--I'm already behind!! My excuse is that we packed three Christmases and a trip to Texas into less than a week's time, and I have the pictures to prove it.

After several Christmases together, I finally enlisted the kids' help in convincing their father that Christmas Eve is the best time to open presents at home, since Santa brings the most anticipated gifts overnight for the next day. Bryan hid a couple of my presents right before my eyes on the tree--they were there for several days in plain view, but it still took me a long time to find them. The boys got what they wanted from Santa--anything Batman-related was a winner this year, and then we were off to Bryan's parents' house for the Wrenn Family Christmas. They love to entertain and Christmastime is always magical at their house--they begin decorating just after Halloween and usually have around 3-4 decorated trees in their house! After hours of eating, unwrapping gifts, drinking, unwrapping more gifts, eating some more, and unwrapping some more, we turned in to catch a 6AM flight to Houston.

The flight went surprisingly well with the kids, and my parents met us at the airport. On our way to my sister's house in Lake Jackson, we stopped at the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see the dinosaur exhibit and Gunther von Hagens' Body World exhibit. Bryan and I have both seen Discovery specials on the body exhibit, so we were very happy to see it in person. And of course the kids loved learning about the dinosaurs. We just wished we had more time to look at everything--the museum is fantastic. We also made it down to Galveston to tour Moody Gardens and see what hurricane damage remained. I was shocked to see sailboats still sitting next to the road on 61st street. Given how big the storm was, I was pleased to see so much of the island up and running again but still saddened at the big mark it made. We ate at Willie G's on the ship channel because Fisherman's Wharf next door was gutted. The Strand was a ghost town.

Most of our time was spent at my sister Melissa's house, where she and her husband Mike installed a huge playset for their son ("Baby Ty"). Mike was at sea (well, mostly at anchorage off Galveston) and managed to catch a launch into town for a short evening dinner with the family. We had a party one afternoon--Melissa & Mike have 2 kegs on tap at all times and plenty of room to sprawl out. One of my college friends brought his family down from Katy and we had a great time catching up and referee-ing the kids.

So we had a very busy Christmas week without much down-time. Still, I was very happy to make it back to Texas even though the trip was short and I think everyone had a good time.