After a week at home after Thanksgiving we were on the road again. This time to Florida and Mississippi. I did not feel like taking 3 long driving trips so we planned to do the Christmas trip by air. It started out ok because Chris was actually leaving from the same airport and he helped me through check-in and security. Unfortunately he then had to go to work, and meet us in Florida 3 days later. We flew from Baltimore to Jackson MS. Let me tell you, I will never take a flight like that again. I was the only adult with 4 children in a plane that stopped 3 times before arriving at our destination and we were never allowed to deplane. We were on the plane for 5 hours. The kids were very good -- for the most part. Caden had one bad flight as he was desperately in need of a nap, but even then he was actually very good. We finally arrived in Jackson MS, managed to retrieve all our luggage (less one adult to help), and picked up our rental car. Then, it was on to our 5 hours drive south to Florida. By the time we got to Florida that night everyone was exhausted.
While we were in Florida we were able to visit with a bunch of friends, and just relax in the warm weather. It was still in the 70's down there while we had left behind temperatures in the 20's. Thursday night we went to Russell's old school so he could watch his friends play basketball. Chris got to Florida on Friday and watched all the kids so I could go to dinner with my girlfriend Marie. It was a great fondu dinner. Russell and Zeke went to their fathers house on Saturday and the rest of us left for Columbus,Mississippi on Sunday morning. We rented a cabin on the lake at the local state park. It was actually very nice. It even had a fireplace where we roasted marshmallow one night with Caden. We enjoyed the quiet time with just two kids but still missed the older boys a lot. Russell had the emergency cell phone with him and so for the first time since they have been going to their fathers, we ad almost continuous contact with them. It made the separation easier. After a week spent opening Christmas presents and hanging out with grandparents, we picked up the big boys in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. We spent one more day in Columbus and drove to Jackson on Sunday to Fly back to Baltimore on Monday. Whew. It was a long and very stressful trip. It was not one of my better Christmas's. There were way too many gifts and it was impossible to get them all home. Despite our continued requests to keep Christmas sensible some relatives refuse to listen. It was ridiculous. We spent twice as much money getting everything back from MS as was undoubtedly spent on the gifts themselves. We had to buy extra luggage, and then the rental car wasn't big enough to hold everything so we had to buy a roof top luggage carrier. Then, we still had to ship 2 boxes of stuff. Next time it will all be left in MS because I am never going through that again. It was miserable. I am not too fond of MS. We did have a chance to wind down a little when we had dinner with our friend Scott Sunday night on our way out of Jackson.
It was nice to be home, and pick up the dogs and just hang out for a couple days, but then once again we were travelling. We stayed at the house until early New Years day, and then drove to Ohio to my parents house for "Christmas" dinner and gifts.
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