What a great holiday

Our holiday was really awesome. We had an early celebration the wknd before Christmas with my parents and sisters. Then we spent Christmas morning at home opening gifts with the kids and later drove down to Burlingame to spend the rest of the day with Mom and Dad. It was so relaxing and mellow. We loved it. We were also able to visit with some extended family Christmas night.

We left for Iowa City on Saturday, December 27, and made it there with no issues (the ice and snow was pretty bad in Iowa that day). We stayed in Iowa through January 1 and spent some great time with Dave and Sally, Lindsey and Anthony and Jenny, Aaron and Eli. The boys, Eli and Gus, absolutely had a blast with each other. I didn't realize how much fun they would have. When they weren't together they were looking for each other. Gus really misses Eli and has asked about him numerous times today. It makes me sad, b/c they really bonded. But hopefully we'll get to see them again sometime this summer. It was so great to spend some time with Aaron and Jenny, especially since we hadn't seen Aaron in a couple of years (he had been in Iraq for his second deployment and returned in August). We drove into Chicago for a day during our visit and visited with Grandma Benseman and Great Aunt Sue. We were also able to drive into the city to meet a friend for lunch in Wicker Park. I miss the city, but I realized that I am really happy living in Lawrence. It would be really hard to have two kids in the city, and I think pretty lonely. But it was awesome to visit again.

We all got some amazing gifts. Our families were so generous. Our main gift to each other this year was a flat screen tv to replace the box tv we have downstairs. It's not huge or fancy, but it's nicer than what we had. That's good enough for me! I also received a purse from Andy (he designed it with Kerry at the Plaza Lille store). It's awesome. Andy and I both got some Marc Jacobs perfume/cologne, so we'll smell yummy. :) It was pretty funny that we got Eli the same gift that Jenny and Aaron got Gus...band in a box. We started the open the gift to Gus and realized it sounded very similar to the gift we had just wrapped for Eli.

We also went on a double date with Jenny and Aaron on New Year's Eve. We went to an Italian restaurant in downtown Iowa City and had such a nice time. It was so nice to just get away without the kids and spend some quality time with Jenny and Aaron. I really wish they lived closer to us. Alabama is so far away, but it was so great to hang with them over the holiday.

The only bummer about our trip was New Year's day when Cleo suddenly started puking. We ended up taking her to the emergency room at the Iowa City hospital b/c she was puking, was super pale and pretty listless, although we also knew she was exhausted. I'm glad we went in, b/c she was pretty dehydrated and after guzzling some Pedialite, she seemed to rebound. They think it was either a weird fluke virus or a weird reaction to soy formula. So we're off the soy formula just in case that was the issue.

Here are some photos of the trip. Many more posted at our flickr account. Happy New Year! We are so thankful for a wonderful 2008 and are very hopeful for a fantastic 2009. It will be a fantastic 2009 if I can get my sweets-lovin' bottom back to the gym (and off the chocolate...).