Wednesday was not very fun for me as I woke up in the middle of the night with a pretty severe case of food poisoning (in hindsight, I was pretty sick on Tuesday as well, but by Wednesday, I could barely move). Fortunately Becca was here and she watched the kids for me all day. Rob offered to come home, but Becca was doing such a wonderful job that we didn't need him to. By Wednesday night I was feeling better.
Becca's roommate, Linda, flew in Wednesday night. As Linda is from Australia and is only in the US for a few months, when we asked what she wanted to do while she was in TX, her list included classic tourist items, such as riding a mechanical bull. We have lived here for over six years, but have never done most of the touristy things in the area. We checked the weather report and Thursday was supposed to be in the mid-60's, but a cold front was coming through Thursday night and the predicted highs for Friday were in the low-40's. We decided to do our outdoor activities on Thursday :)
Rob got off work an hour or two early and we loaded up into two cars and headed to the Fort Worth Stockyards. We got to watch the cattledrive, then Linda and Becca rode the mechanical bull. We checked out the stores around the area and had BBQ for dinner. It started to get chilly around then, so we headed home. Becca, Linda and I left Rob and the kids at home and headed off to see the lights of downtown Dallas. We stopped off at a Sonic on the way there, then drove through downtown Grapevine by mistake, although it was a wonderful mistake. The traffic was horrible, so it took us quite a while to get just a few blocks. Their were Christmas lights everywhere and people walking around in coats and hats (it was freezing by then). The gazebo in town square thingy was filled with carolers, so we rolled down one of the car windows and soaked in the beautiful music. It felt like we were driving through a Thomas Kincade Christmas painting :)
After Grapevine, we stopped by the Galleria mall and walked around for a while, stopping to watch the ice skaters on the rink in the middle of the mall. We drove back home via downtown Fort Worth.
Friday we loaded everyone in two cars as soon as Rob got home from work around 1pm and headed off to let the kids buy Christmas presents for each other. While we were waiting for Rob to get home, Eva took a nap with Becca :) Becca has done an awesome job these past two weeks getting Eva to sleep when she's tired and Eva has taken several naps while cuddling with Becca.
We started a new tradition this year - we opened one present the day before Christmas Eve. Rob and I picked the present we thought the kids would be most excited about as this way it would be special and wouldn't blend in with all the other presents on Christmas.
Rob got a survival book he'd been wanting for a while and was so excited about getting it that he actually smiled for a picture!
Megan got a butterfly in a jar. It's a fake butterfly, but it looks really realistic. It's attached to a thin wire and when you tap the top of the jar, it flies around.
Kylie got a Discovery Kids laptop.
Beth got a Dora bathtime castle.
Jack got a Captain America mask and shield (his present was wrapped in wrapping paper, it was just in a bag within the wrapping paper as we ran out of tissue paper).
Eva got a corn popper thingy, which she LOVES, but she wouldn't pose for a picture with it. Instead she decided to empty the tupperware cabinet so she could sit in it.
Jack kidnapped the camera that afternoon and took about a hundred photos. There were some cute ones in the group ~
