Happy New Year!

And a late merry Christmas! We drove 19 hours to see Clay, Fe, Bobby, Charlie, and Sam for Christmas. It was so much fun and the drive wasn't all that bad. It was so fun celebrating Christmas with kids - it's just totally different. We went to church after opening presents and because we were such a big group we were asked to bring up the gifts, so we did and that was a first for everyone but myself so it was fun. Pat really didn't want to but after the fact he was of course like, "that wasn't so bad" like brushing his shoulders as if he'd done an outstanding job or something. He did though, I was very proud of him. :) We went down to the Riverwalk and that was soooo pretty! They had all these Christmas lights in the trees and they were reflecting off the water; it was just really pretty. We also walked down to see the Alamo and THAT was awesome because it's just so old and you get to walk right up to it. It's smaller than I thought it really was, but it's cool - you can see the bullet holes in the bricks and stuff. There was a great big Christmas tree in front of that too, and it was also really pretty. We had such a good time. Clay and Fe are awesome and the kids are so funny. Oh and we played Guitar Hero World Tour and I gotta say that we kicked ass. Between my scary good vocals paired with the fact that I was sick the entire time we were there and a seven year old playing the guitar and Pat having his five year old niece come and sit in his lap and try to show him something on her leapster while he was playing the drums...I'm surprised it even let us finish a song, but it was very entertaining.

On the way home there was snow in El Paso almost halfway through New Mexico where there was fog and ice on the roads so there were also two semi trucks that had run off the road within a half a mile of each other. It was really only that cold because we drove through the entire night (actually - I drove the entire night, like from 9:30 until 4:00am, yes on one tank of gas - we went like 450 miles on it!! Pat got to sleep when normal people usually fall asleep...I was trying to sleep while the sun was out the entire time.) so once morning came it wasn't bad at all. I had never driven by the border of Mexico either, that was crazy. There are these huge lights just like pointing at the desert from our side of the fence. We also got stopped like ten times by border patrol just to make sure we were citizens. There are security checkpoints everywhere on the way from here to San Antonio.

So now we're back and it's 2009. Pat's been sick all day - I think he has the flu - so we are no longer going to Disneyland tomorrow. Bummer - it's all decorated for Christmas till Sunday so maybe he'll get to feeling better...we'll see.