First it gets funny...
Watching my mom and Jim exchange presents was hilarious. The presents my mom received from Jim had already been picked out by her but wrapped by Jim. Each time she opened a gift she gave quite a performance acting surprised. At first I was blown away by how perfect Jim's gifts were for my mom, but then I remembered she actually picked them out herself. My mom had a variety of presents for Jim (all a surprise) but forgot what was in each box. It was very funny watching them open the gifts.
Sam wanted to know how Santa delivered the gifts since Mom and Jim don't have a fireplace. Ian said he came through the air vent. Sam didn't question that as an answer, despite the air vent being very small in size.
We had a big dinner and Lori, Ben and Rachel came over to join us. The majority of the day was spent in the kitchen cooking. It was a lot of work, but very fun and so delicious! I made two desserts; an Apple Cheesecake Streusel Bar and a Turtle Bar.
Then it gets ugly...
After dinner my mom wanted to take us to Celebration for their holiday celebration. At 6pm, 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm they have it snow for 10 minutes on the hour. And this year they offered outdoor "ice skating" until 10:00pm. Celebration is approx. a 15 to 20 minute from my mom's house. We followed Jim who took us a back way to get there. Only this way wasn't faster, it took us an hour of sitting in traffic to finally get there. At this point, Jeff is starting to lose his good mood. Sam fell asleep in the car and it is guaranteed now that she won't go back to sleep easily when we get back to my mom's house. We weren't getting anywhere quick and it was only getting later and later.
It took us another 20 minutes or so to find a parking spot. We finally ended up in a condo parking lot with big signs announcing it would TOW if your car was found in this lot. Both Jim and Jeff begrudgingly agreed to park there. My mom and I (obviously genetics were in play here) didn't see anything wrong with these golden spots that were extremely close to all the action. Ian kept saying he didn't feel safe (?!?!). Jeff wanted to stay by the car and keep an eye on it. Jim at one point felt like he should go back to the parking lot and check on the car. Basically the girls ruled and we all proceeded ahead with our plans to watch it snow and ice skate.
Have I mentioned that Jeff is not a fan of big crowds or lots of noise? Both of which were in full swing as the holiday music is piping through the speakers and everyone in Orlando seemed to have the same idea as us on where to go on Christmas evening.
The snow is really just bubbles made to look like snow. It's a novelty and everyone in the town square gets all excited to see it. Everyone that is but Jeff. He wasn't amused and was ready to get back in the car and make our way home to put the kids down to bed.
After the snow fall, it is time to go ice skating. Mind you it is not real ice, but a special kind of plastic that you can skate on. Normally I am all about ice skating, but due to a blister on my foot, getting ice skates on my feet wasn't my idea of fun. Jeff hates ice skating but felt like he had to do it to help the kids. He is now comparing this whole evening to being on a beach. With all 3 on the ice Jeff is holding on to Sam's walker more to balance himself than actually needing to help Sam skate. He keeps glaring at me and I am pretty sure he mouthed the word "hate" when I our eyes met.
The skate session is for 30 minutes but the kids and Jeff last about 15. They've had enough and want to their skates off NOW!
As we make our way back to the car we stop at the Market Cafe for Ian to use the bathroom. Mom looks at her watch and sees it is going to snow again in 10 minutes. G-d I love her and her inability to know when to give up, but my mom proposes waiting for the snow to fall again. It was a pretty unanimous "no" and we go to the car.
Now it gets pathetic...
We tell Jim we are not going to follow him home. We will go our own way and put the address in the GPS. We just know that getting on the highway will be faster than Jim's back roads. As we make our way to I-4, the GPS has us go towards a toll road. Jeff asks if we will actually be going on a toll road. I say, "No, it's just the direction we are headed. We won't come to the toll." Well, I was wrong. Big-time! Before we knew it, we were at the toll booth and needed a $1.00 to go through. I knew I didn't have any money on me and Jeff said he didn't either. We pull over to the side of the road, right in front of the toll booth and work on counting all the change I could find at the bottom of my purse. We make it to .89 cents. Yep, that's the best we can do. I am laughing at the predicament we are in. Of course, Jeff is getting even more pissed and his mood has gone from bad to worse. I think at this point he was wishing he was on a beach. It is truly sad that between the both of us we don't even have a dollar on us. As we are scrounging for any change we can find, Sam says "You should've gone to the bank earlier today." Um, yeah! That's for sure.
There is no option to turn-around We have to go through the toll booth. We tell the toll booth collector we only have .89 cents. Does he take credit cards? He says no. After a long moment of silence I ask what do we do then? He gave us a card and said we had 10 days to mail in the toll. We thanked him and continued on our way. I did offer the .89 cents we came up with as a down payment, but he wasn't interested.
Then it got funny again...
We were certain that with our change counting delay there was no possible way we'd get home before Mom and Jim. Surprisingly enough, we did. At this point we are all giggling again and very surprised to have a good 5 minutes before they walked in the house.
This will surely be a Christmas to remember. :)
I am certain that in the moment, this was all very tense and frustrating and that you were both agitated. With a little time, this is going to be one those stories you'll tell over and over. Thanks for the chuckle ;-)
ReplyDeleteThese kid of things don't agitate me at all! It certainly doesn't help that I can easily find the humor in most everything, which of course pushes Jeff's buttons even more. :). Happy New Year Rebecca!
Delete