safe travels

Merry Christmas friends and family,

Apparently the rest of the country has outlawed the use of the word Christmas so here on the 4Webb's blog we'll use that as our greeting for the rest of the year. Just exercising my freedom of speech. Ah, sweet freedom. I'll avoid my soapbox regarding the current effort to push Jesus out of America, but just know I'm not happy about it one bit.

There are many things to be happy about so I'll spend my time focused on those instead.

Sometimes not knowing how to do something is better than partly knowing. This is where the statement "ignorance is bliss" comes from. In the morning it is common to find Easton sitting up in bed reading or talking across the room to Layla. However, Layla usually jumps up and down in her crib loudly singing or screaming Easton. Also, the longer we leave her awake in the crib, the more likely it is to find her clothing in some state of disarray. She figured out how to unzip her pajamas, but hasn't figured out how to take them all the way off. She also figured out how to take her shirt off... sort of.


Easton thought it was very humorous. His eyes are purposefully closed as he laughed at Layla's shirt incident.


The trip:

The drive to NorCal was safe and uneventful (whew). We started the trip by singing Old MacDonald and Psalty songs and eventually had to resort to watching a video. that lasted until dinner time where I fell apart. The only good thing to come from the McDonald's trip is that now I know the play area is NOT for kids under 3 years old. We revved up Easton and Layla so they would be excited about the play area when we arrived. However, after taking their shoes off and running around it became clear they were not big enough to climb up into the vertical tunnels which led to the suspended passages. Layla cried because she wanted to follow the other kids. Easton cried because he was starving. I fell apart because the entire McDonalds was disgustingly dirty and the patrons looked like half of them were homeless.

Kendra returned with a receipt... not food, just a receipt because they were slow behind the counter. That pushed me into a whole new state of panic because now I have two kids running around the dirty play area with no shoes on... and no food to lure them away to a table. I decided to wait in line for the food and get it "to go" so Kendra led the kids to the car while I went to the counter to find out how long it was going to take for us to get the food. After 10 minutes of being ignored by every employee behind the counter I just left. And now for the happy part. Across the street was (drum roll please)... Denny's! The waitress had two bowls of Mac-N-Cheese on our table within 2 minutes of sitting down at the clean table. That moment was the highlight of the trip. The failed attempts to play in the play area, acquire food, and sit at a clean table faded away with every bite of my Grand Slam breakfast.

From then on, it was nothing but sleeping, highway, fog, and quiet. The twins slept well and we arrived at 4:00 AM. We took a day to adjust, but we are all in full vacation mode.

We're HERE!

Layla asks, "Where is the snow?"


She's ready for the cold, for sure. We are hoping to go see the snow during our visit. Easton is up to his same old constructive tricks in Oma and Opa's living room. His tower is really tall and aligned, isn't it!


As a part of the holiday tradition of baking and cooking, Oma is starting early to show Layla the secrets of the kitchen.


Yesterday GG came over to spend some time with us and she looks like royalty sitting in Opa's big, comfy chair with her purple outfit.


I was happy the twins heard a refresher of GG's lullaby songs. It means much more to them when she sings the songs (instead of us) and they are live in 3-D (instead of Skype). The next few days will be relaxing and filled with sharing meals with friends and family. I can't ask for more than that!

See you soon.