Christmas

I can't believe that Christmas is over. What a fantastic Christmas this was. My Christmas week started with the Channel 2 Toy Run in Baltimore. I started doing this about 4 years ago. It really puts things into perspective. The toy drive starts off to benefit the families of fallen officers and fallen firefighters. Unfortunately there have been way too many line of duty deaths this year, most of the officers had small children. These families are honored at a dinner before we deliver the toys. Then we load police cars as full as we can with gifts. One of the places we took toys was to the Ronald McDonald house. It breaks my heart to see the families there from all over the world who would give anything to have a healthy child. We met one father whose 2 year old daughter was going to have a liver transplant the next day. I know all of our prayers were with her. There was probably 2 miles of police cars filled with toys, what a great way to start off Christmas.

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun. During the day we met Sharon and Michelle and kids at Jump Zone. I think Eric had as much fun as the kids did running around and playing. We went to church with Dave, Beth, Dannie, Alyssa, and Lucille. All of the kids were called to the front of the church to talk about Christmas. The pastor asked why were we celebrating, I was so proud of Michael when he was the first one to say it was baby Jesus' birthday! After church we went to Watkins park for a drive through Christmas light show. By the time we got home it was already 8:30, way past bedtime so we checked on north pole.com and could see that NORAD was tracking Santa and that he was getting ready to cross the ocean. That was all the kids needed to hear, straight to bed and not a word out of them till morning.

Christmas morning was a blast, David handed out most of the presents, they loved everything they got, it didn't matter if it was a new game for the Wii or new underwear! We had breakfast and played until it was time to go to Beth and Dave's for dinner. We had a really nice time at dinner and for once I did not have to rush out. I did not have to be at work until 7pm!

The days after Christmas have been spent playing. The boys are really getting a workout playing Outdoor Adventure on the Wii. Sunday the boys and I will leave for mom and Jerry's house. Eric will be staying home to take care of the dogs