One of our trips planned for 2020 was an adult only trip with my family to Hawaii. I spent most of the time being like, it's never going to happen, but then Covid restrictions were changing every day so it was really hard to tell. They finally lifted the two week quarantine mandate and said that as long as you had a negative Covid test within 72 hours of landing in Hawaii you were good to go. People were going to Hawaii and I started to actually let myself start making plans. I had to figure out our Covid testing, which meant staying up late and waking up early during Thanksgiving break to stalk the Walgreens testing schedule like a weirdo. I finally had it all figured out and had started my packing and to do lists. My parents left the day after Thanksgiving and were going to be there for a week before the rest of us got there. Just as their plane landed Kauai announced they were going back to the mandatory two week quarantine starting Dec 2, and we were all set to come Dec 5. It sucked big time. As much as I love these two, I was very much looking forward to a week without them.
To distract myself I started a new project. I started seeing Hot Cocoa bombs all over social media, so I bought a mold on Amazon and decided to learn to make them myself. They are basically a hollow chocolate ball that you fill with hot cocoa powder and marshmallows. You pour hot milk over them and you have an instant cup of delicious hot chocolate. I got very into it and kept thinking of new flavors to try. After I had made more batches than we could possibly use I decided to try to sell them to friends through instagram. I sold all of my ready made boxes with my experimental flavors and people loved them. I decided to make more flavors and then put them on social media again as customizable orders for Christmas. I was a little nervous to post it, but the response was pretty incredible. Our real estate agent Bryce saw my post and said that he was trying to shop small for his client appreciation gifts this year. He gave me one week and said he would buy as many as I could make in that time. I set the goal to make 120 cocoa bombs and quickly got to work. As Rory put it, "You used to play with me, and now you just make cocoa bombs." It was a little crazy, but in the end, I did it! More on that later. And yes, I am in fact cataloging all my flavors in our family history. I don't know what the future holds for me, kids, and I need you to know I was good at something! Even if it was something random like making hot cocoa bombs.
Marisa said she wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday because she is a birthday angel and so we decided to go out the following Monday. She surprised me by inviting some of our book group friends along and oh my heavens did I feel celebrated. We met up at Zinburger and got to chat and eat and stayed way too long. Not only did my friends get babysitters and pay to go out, but they all showed up with presents as well! And in December, when spending is crazy for everyone. I was floored by their kindness and seriously felt like a million bucks afterward.
But the birthday celebrations didn't end there (I told you it was crazy!) Since Hawaii was off the table we decided to look around for a staycation to do altogether. I found out that Great Wolf Lodge was having a cyber Monday special and so we booked an overnight stay for our family the Thursday after my birthday. Stephen was hoping to be able to take a half day of work on Thursday, so we could head out to the resort and start playing at the water park, but he had work obligations that made it impossible so instead I went up early with the girls to do check in and hit up the water park and he picked up dinner and met us when he was done. We didn't tell the girls about it and so on the afternoon we were leaving I told Rory we should play a game and pretend we were going on a trip. We packed up our bags and then I said, "Ok let's find some place to stay with a water park. And maybe they will even have a bed for us!" She was so stoked. Our room was great and check-in was pretty seamless (Rory seriously squealed when I said, they do have a bed for us!), but as soon as we got to the water park I felt like I had maybe overestimated my abilities. Keeping up with Rory while also carrying Ada while also being pregnant was a little much. We played for an hour and a half or so before I convinced Rory to head back to the room. We got dried off and turned on a movie while we waited for Stephen to show up with Cane's (which was also a surprise for Rory since we told her Dad couldn't come on our adventure because of work). After a delicious dinner, Cane's never lets me down, we changed into jammies and headed down to the lobby for story time. They had a dance party and made it "snow" and one of the characters even came out. Whatever they are paying those workers it is not enough, but it was a very cute little show and the girls were enthralled.
Bedtime was rough in our room. Rory had her own little "cave" with bunkbeds and Ada's pack n play fit in there as well. I had envisioned them chatting until they drifted off to sleep and then Stephen and I getting to watch a movie. Instead they couldn't fall asleep, Rory kept popping up in our side of the room, getting more obnoxious by the minute, and Ada screamed and screamed and screamed. They finally, FINALLY fell asleep and Stephen and I managed to watch one episode of New Girl. Ada, of course, got up in the middle of the night and I had nothing to console her with so I had to rock her all the way back to sleep. It was a very long night.
In the morning, Stephen made everything better by going to buy us Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Just check out that bed head and excited face. We had a chill morning and watched cartoons and packed up the room- how do such little humans require so much stuff for just one night? We put the bags in the car and headed down to the water park for day 2.
After ten minutes of being at the water park Rory said, "I'm ready to go home." And I thought, oh my heavens, what have we done. Stephen quickly turned her attention to something else and I realized that today was going to be a lot different with him to help out. We played and played and played and played. Ada loved the small waterslide and it was a thrill to catch her at the bottom before she hit the water. Rory loved everything, but especially the wave pool. Stephen finally convinced her to try out the tube slides and those instantly became a favorite. They had large rafting slides to the whole family was able to ride down together. Ada was the only one in our crew who did not love it, which was a little surprising. She was definitely exhausted from all her not sleeping the night before. At one point Stephen was able to get her to fall asleep on him in the lazy river, after many many attempts by me to do the same, and they were both in heaven. Rory and I rode as many slides as we could during her nap. They had one really intense drop slide that I couldn't even fathom going on (hooray for the pregnancy excuse) but Stephen loved it and rode it several times. We ended up staying to play for until around 3:30 pm and it was so worth the missed nap times. The crazy thing was being home in 20 minutes after what felt like such a fun "vacation". Just looking back at these pictures now makes me want to squeeze my babies and I think that's the mark of a successful vacation. *Also, our favorite souvenir has been these wolf ears they gave us because Ada wants to wear them non-stop, even though she hates headbands and bows. She will put them on or bring them to you so that you can put them on her and then walk around the house howling on command. It is one of her best ever tricks so far.
That weekend we got a last minute visit from John and Ashleigh's crew. They drove after work on Friday and showed up with some happy and exhausted kids around midnight. I took a break from cocoa bombs to make a "Minecraft" cake for Linh's nephew who lives in Phoenix. We all got to have a lazy morning and let the kids play. Eventually the rest of the adults took the kids to the riparian to burn off some more kid energy and I tore apart our kitchen and tried to quickly learn how to do fondant for this cake, whose pick up time had been moved forward two hours that morning. I finished just in the nick of time for it to be picked up and cleaned up my powdered sugar mess just as they all came home. We had a great pick up lunch at home and then the boys took off for golf while we let the babies nap and the girls watch a movie. As soon as Ada was up we took them all to Uptown Jungle and it was the major success I had hoped it would be. After wearing the kids out as much as we possibly could, we came home to the boys already starting dinner and had some delicious tri-tip and Mac and cheese.
We then got to work trying to put all the babies to bed. Ada went down without a fuss. Rory and Siena decided they wanted a sleepover on the floor. Lincoln decided he wanted not to sleep at all. We decided to ditch them with a babysitter and let it be someone else's problem for a couple of hours. Lexi came over again and watched movies with Lincoln while the girls casually popped out of their room to tell her they were thinking about witches and voices in their heads.
We headed off on an adventure without any real destination and ended up in Downtown Gilbert to prove to Ashleigh that we had some culture and nightlife so that she would eventually move here. We walked around and then popped in to Rocket Fizz for some sodas and candies. We then made our way to Creme and Chocolate (again) to finally try out their crepes, and my oh my they did not disappoint. It was a lovely evening and all the children miraculously were asleep when we got home (except for Ada who immediately awoke upon our return because of course she did). They stayed and played a little on Sunday before taking off that afternoon. It was a quick but wonderful visit.
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'Then it was back to regular life once again, which in this case meant going back to making what felt like roughly one million cocoa bombs. In an effort to not ignore my children completely (because I had definitely already given up cleaning the house or cooking actual meals) I made a paper chain with a different activity to do each day in December. We were able to do some fun things together and it helped bring a little Christmas spirit to our house even when I was a little stressed.
Our girls have not been sleeping well lately and it means that every evening is a battle at our house. I'm exhauster and ready to finally get things done while they argue and battle and refuse sleep and we all get angry at one another. It is horrible. On this particular evening while we were going through the same old power struggle, Rory got herself stuck in a chair and freaked out while Ada, complete with wolf ears, joined her in crying because why the heck not? It was extremely representative of our life right now and was way funnier to me than it should have been. And yes, I did take a picture (and video) before helping her out.
Rory had a little Christmas performance for her dance class and she did such a good job! They did a ballet dance to Mr Grinch and a tap dance to It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. There was very little actual dancing and it was concerning to see how little they are accomplishing in their dance class, so much so I had to stifle my laughter the entire time, but Rory was front and center and did a wonderful job with what little choreography she was actually given to work with. I love seeing her shine. Ada was impressed as well.
At the end of the show they announced that her teacher, Miss Kylie, is getting married after Christmas and has been planning the wedding herself because her fiance is in basic training. He surprised her and came out in full soldier garb from behind the mats in the corner after the show and it was really sweet. Rory has been extremely distressed that her teacher is "in-loved" and maybe won't be her teacher any more.
We had lots of play dates this week to help some friends out while also keeping Rory busy. In some cases it helped me get my cocoa bombs done and in others it meant not so much work got done, but look at these happy kids.
Some of our Christmas activities included writing a letter to Santa, and delivering it to his special mailbox, and looking at Christmas lights. Emily and Cam's neighborhood went all out so we went and saw the lights with them, and this random little girl who joined our picture.
After neglecting everything else in my life and roughly 20 Hobby Lobby trips for packaging I finished my goal of 120 cocoa bombs! I got them all packaged up and shot a message off to Bryce about how many I had for him. I explained that we were leaving Monday afternoon to fly to Washington but pickup any time before that was great. He quickly replied that they looked awesome, he would pick them up Monday morning and how much did he owe me? I sent him the total and my Venmo information and then didn't hear back from him. Still hadn't heard anything from him Monday morning when I woke up. I went to work packing, cleaning, getting ready for our trip and obsessively checking my phone freaking out thinking what am I going to do if he bailed. I had boxes and boxes and boxes of cocoa bombs and no time to sell them if he backed out. Stephen kept checking in while I slowly lost my mind and the hours crept by. Finally at 11:00 am (which should hardly be considered morning, right?) after still hearing nothing from him, I texted him my address because I had no idea what else to do. He messaged that he would be by soon and my heart was suddenly 50 pounds lighter. He came and picked them all up at noon and we left for the airport at 1 pm. All's well that ends well, but it made for a memorable experience.
When we booked our Washington flight we were trying to do it as cheap as possible since we had spent all our points on Hawaii and when Hawaii was cancelled I never checked back on our flights to see what they actually were. We flew from Phoenix to Palm Springs, stayed on the plane and then flew to Oakland, got on another plane which then flew us to Spokane where my dad picked us up. We left our house at 1 pm and got to Moses Lake at 10:30 pm. It was a LONG day of travel and Stephen kept looking at me like, why on earth did we book this itinerary? But the girls did incredible on the flights and for 5.5 hours of air travel I was so impressed with them.
It was way too much fun having everyone in Moses Lake together. Rory played with her cousins so well this year that most days I only saw her around meal times. Grammy had all sorts of fun activities planned for the kids like necklace making, sticker art, and special puzzles. I made four batches of cocoa bombs so that everyone could try them, and my family was probably being nice, but they were a huge hit.
We had a family gingerbread house competition that the adults got pretty into and very little children involvement was actually allowed, minus Brad's crew. Christmas Eve we did a nativity that Scarlet put together and Rory made an excellent Mary. We opened Christmas jammies and practiced hiding for Santa and it was everything my Christmas memories are made of. Grandma even got to come over and join us. She's a little harder of hearing and more quick to forget these days, so any chance to be with her is a blessing. She was supposed to be the gingerbread house judge, but as predicted she said she loved them all. In the end, Courtney and I tied for first.
After Christmas everyone got to enjoy everyone else's gifts and there really was zero fighting or destroying of someone else's toys. How's that for a Christmas miracle? Rory loved playing with Ridley's Pretty, Pretty Princess game, and so did most of the boys. She walked along with her camera most of the rest of our visit and I am sure that she got some golden photos, I'll need to go through them. There were also a lot of dance parties (most of them lead by Stephen and mandated by Quinn).
The adults stayed very busy ignoring our children, making Mom do all the cooking, and having a blast. Kristy brought her VR set and we all did a plank experience that simulates walking out on a wooden plank from a skyscraper. I cried, unfortunately, and will never be able to live it down. They had a fun game called Beat Sabers which is sort of like DDR but you have light sabers in your hands and you are slashing through boxes to the beat. It was addicting and we purchased as many new music packs as possible because we were all obsessed with it. My favorite VR game was called I Expect You to Die. You are a secret agent and it's basically like every level is a different escape room, only every time you mess up you die in someway and have to start over. I was mildly obsessed with it and hogged the VR set until we as a collective group had successfully beat every level. Here's a picture of Courtney beat sabering so you get a sense of how cool and normal we looked all break.
The favorite board games were Skull King, Puns of Anarchy, Codenames, and Pirate's Cove. We also spent a lot of time puzzling. We did an escape room puzzle that made you solve a few mysteries at the end and since I didn't put the puzzle together it was a little fun. Then Kristy had a "magic" puzzle and it turned out the magic was that once you finished the puzzle you moved the pieces around and then were given pieces to do more puzzle. Not my kind of prize.
One of my most favorite parts of the after Christmas playing had to do with one of my Christmas presents, and it may be the greatest gift I have ever been given. Kendall got me in the sibling exchange and she gave me a shirt that said, This is My Hallmark Christmas Movies Watching Shirt, which I loved of course but then she also wrote an entire SCREENPLAY for a Hallmark Christmas movie idea that I had told her. A couple days after Christmas we turned on a movie for the kids and sat around and did a table read. It was incredible, hilarious, and just one of the coolest things that a human has ever done for me. Kendall is just the best.
On Sunday, before a bunch of the men folk had to get back to work, Brad blessed baby Ainsley at my parents house. Then we all went over to Brad and Jules house to take family pictures in their backyard. My girls were surprisingly good for pictures and even though it was cold, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time we took family pictures with Julie. She even brought cotton candy that Bill had made for all the kids and my girls couldn't quite believe I let them each have their own.
I stayed busy the rest of the day working on a birthday cake for Dax and Eve. I made a seven-layer-bar cake and it was intense. The filling did not turn out quite right, but I'm going to blame it on my mom's wonky oven and people seemed pretty happy with it anyways.
I had another Covid miracle in the form of a penalty-free changed flight for our trip home. Southwest emailed us saying that middle seats would be occupied on our trip so if we were uncomfortable we could change flights once with no penalties. After contemplating paying the difference to book the non stop flight home we were able to just switch to that one for free. Another Christmas miracle!
On Sunday, before a bunch of the men folk had to get back to work, Brad blessed baby Ainsley at my parents house. Then we all went over to Brad and Jules house to take family pictures in their backyard. My girls were surprisingly good for pictures and even though it was cold, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time we took family pictures with Julie. She even brought cotton candy that Bill had made for all the kids and my girls couldn't quite believe I let them each have their own.
I had another Covid miracle in the form of a penalty-free changed flight for our trip home. Southwest emailed us saying that middle seats would be occupied on our trip so if we were uncomfortable we could change flights once with no penalties. After contemplating paying the difference to book the non stop flight home we were able to just switch to that one for free. Another Christmas miracle!
Besides a little snow on Christmas, it was a pretty cold and dry break. The morning everyone was leaving, the sky just unloaded with big thick beautiful flakes. It would have made for the best snow day on any other day during our vacation, but instead it caused all of us some headaches. While I finished packing our bags and cleaning up our many, many messes Stephen shoveled the walkway and Rory played in the snow. She laid down and made a snow angel, twice, even though she was definitely not properly dressed for it. It took us an extra hour to get to the airport because the roads were so messy and everyone had to go so slow. We saw at least 5 cars on the side of the road. But we made it with plenty of time for our flight and my mom said she had a much easier drive back. Kacey's giant van wasn't able to make it up the driveway and she ended up having to stay an extra day or two.
We got home Wednesday night and on Thursday morning we surprised the girls by bringing Coco home! Stephen went and picked her up and when he got home he rang the doorbell and there she was sitting in her little laundry basket. She is very sweet and she and Stephen are best friends already. Rory enjoys screaming commands at her, go figure. Ada loves feeding her food that she shouldn't and Coco loves tackling Ada so she can lick her ear. I like Coco best when she snuggles during show time.
Here's to a new year, a new pet, and hopefully a new job for Stephen (eventually, after he survives another busy season.) Happy December!
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