First Christmas with our children home

This year was our first Christmas as a family. Something I have dreamed about for many years. We were so excited when Naing's parents said they wanted to visit over Christmas. Then my Mom said she wanted to come too. More excitement. The grandparents would be here to meet our children at their first Christmas. Naing surprised us with the great idea of renting a beach house in Pacific City. We even got to bring the dogs.
The anticipation of a nice trip with the kiddos and parents builds as we shop for groceries, plan menus and my Mom arrives. Naing's parents come in on the 20th.
Then little things started to go wrong. I lost my cell, totally disappeared, couldn't find it anywhere. Thought I had left it at church but no.
Naing's parents' flight was late, but it said on the monitor at the airport that it was on time. Naing was all over PDX trying to locate his parents and calling me to see if they had called. He paged them, no response. Then he found out that the plane had not landed it was delayed. So he waited. Naing's Mom's baggage didn't make the connecting flight. We were told it would be delivered before midnight or on Monday.
As we were packing on Monday to leave, we waited for the delivery company to bring the bag. That took forever, we got a late start to the road.
In the midst of all the confusion and taking care of the kids and the grandparents, neither one of us finished packing the food in the fridge. So the $30 ham I bought for Christmas dinner was still in Newberg while we were in Pacific City. So was all the other perishable groceries bought for the week. Oh well back to the store we would have to go once we got there.
We had so many people and stuff for the kiddos we had to take two cars. My Mom, kids, dogs and some of the luggage went with me. Naing took his parents, and the rest of the luggage and stroller.
Naing gave me the print out of the directions to the house, but forgot to give me the last page with the house information on it. I didn't know where we were going. But of course I didn't find that out until we were actually on the road. Haven kept calling my name and making a fuss about something, so I pulled over and good thing I did. Naing had forgotten to actually strap her into the car seat. When I pulled over, I lost track of Naing's car. Remember I don't have a cell phone to call him, so I was a little pissed when I figured out I didn't have the home address. The only thing that saved my husband from my wrath was I actually wrote his number down to give my sister in Texas, so we could talk on Christmas. I found the only pay phone in the town of Pacific City when we arrived and was able to get a hold of him.
The house was beautiful but not set up for young children. So I spent most of my time keeping my kiddos from breaking something expensive or keeping them from climbing the stairs by themselves.
But we made it and the weather was gorgeous, couldn't have been better. Clear, sunny and crisp days. We walked on the beach and enjoyed the scenery.
Naing's dad was not a happy camper because the satellite tv really only had basic service. Naing's dad is almost 91 and set in his ways. There was alot of grumbling about the lack of things for him to watch.
The kids were having a great time until it came time for bed. We made a huge mistake only bringing 1 play and pack and thinking they could sleep together. No way did that happen. Each night we were there one of them was up crying (they were getting sick) and no sleep was had by anyone in our room. Haven actually cried for 2 hours one night, she had an ear infection that caused her ear drum to burst again. Of course I only brought the ear drops that help pain, but not the antibiotics, because we didn't know she had an infection.
By the time Christmas eve arrived we were frazzled. Both children were sick and Alec was running a fever. I decided to go home Christmas day after we had lunch so the kids could be at home and in their own beds and get better. My mom came home with me and we had some alone time to visit. Naing and his parents stayed at the beach house, since it was paid for.
This was not the Christmas I had envisioned for our children's first Christmas. But welcome to parenthood, kids get sick and it doesn't matter if it is a holiday.
So there are only a few pictures of Christmas morning, because they really were not very interested in the gifts, they felt so bad.
We had gotten together with my sister a few days before and they had a Christmas there when they were feeling good and enjoyed all the ripping of the wrapping paper and the gifts. Here are pictures from that early Christmas at my sister's house.

Pictures are not posting, I'll post them later. Happy New Year