Haven't blogged in a very long time!

We just got back today from Spokane. We left Friday morning and made fairly good time across the pass. Took us 6 hrs, including a 1 hour stop in Vantage for lunch.

Originally we were going to stay with Jason's friend, Jason. However, upon our arrival at his house, we found that our bed had been set up among very expensive stereo and TV equipment and that they'd done a couple bug bombs and had not cleaned up at all... there were dead bugs all over the floors. Obviously, this wasn't going to work with two little kids.

We ended up staying in a hotel, which worked out very well.

Saturday we had breakfast with Jason's friend and his girlfriend. It was some kind of disaster.
We ate late and Ethan was starving and cranky and the food was slow to come and I do think we probably frightened these people from ever having children :) We then headed to Angela's house (Jason's sister) for a get-together. We all exchanged gifts and the kids came home with some really great stuff. It was fun to see all the cousins together and interacting. Ethan really had a super time rough housing with his older cousins and would tackle Matthew (6) repeatedly, wrestling with him all over the floor.

After Angela's house, we went over to see Amber and Josh. Grammy & Grandpa, Aunt Daralyn & Uncle Greg and Tim & Lindy were there. Ethan and Kadin played well together, Gwennie was kinda cranky. We played games, ate some pizza and had a good visit until we had to leave when the poor children reached the very end of their rope. It had been an extremely long day!

Jason took us back to the hotel room, helped me get the kids settled and then left to be with his friends. He came back right around 12:45. I brought in the New Year sleeping like a rock :) Ok with me though, I don't like New Years anyway!

Sunday we decided to stay another day and headed out to Coeur D'Alene to visit with Jason's brother. Ethan was a little hellion (he was so over-tired and over-stimulated... he acted about 1000x worse than he normally does!) but we enjoyed our little bit of time with them.

After coming back to the hotel, we all crashed big time. Jason and Ethan fell asleep on the bed, Gwennie in her pack & play, me on the couch playing Animal Crossing on Jason's new Nintendo DS. A few hours later, and feeling much more rested we ordered dinner in from Outback and had big steaks. We hadn't really eaten a decent meal since we arrived and felt much better after having a big meal.

Today we headed back early and again made decent time. We stopped for an hour in Ritzville to eat, change diapers and stretch our legs. After that stop we didn't make another (except to briefly switch drivers) until we got home. The kids slept from just outside Ritzville all the way to Issaquah. Once they awoke they had no patience and fussed until they got out. I don't blame them. We spent so much time in the car!

Our evening has been pretty calm. We had Parmesan pork chops and garlicky spinach.

We were playing in the living room and Ethan stepped on a toy, slipped a bit (didn't fall though) and gave a great cry and ran into my arms. He cried a little bit but we couldn't figure out whether he was just scared or hurt. He stopped crying a minute later and we didn't think anything of it until we were about to put him to bed. Then we saw an ugly, large red spot on the underside of his upper-arm. He burned himself on the stove! :( Poor baby! He barely cried about it, and it looks soooo bad. I put some antibiotic cream on it, covered with a sterile bandage and then wrapped it loosely in one of those stretchy bandages. It really doesn't seem to be causing him much pain at all, but it looks so bad :(

Well, I think this blog has gone long enough. We are pooped and I'm ready to crash into bed. Happy New Year everyone!