December has been a whirlwind of a month and I must admit I was definitely ready for some time off. In August, my friend and boss took a position outside of the district, which left our Health Services Department without a director. I always said that I would never be the director as I had zero desire to do the job and have held firm to that, until recently. After much coercion and realizing that perhaps I can do the job since I have been doing it the past 3 1/2 months, I recently accepted the position of Health Services Director. The Thursday prior to break, it was announced to our department and I unexpectedly received a standing ovation from the staff which about left me speechless. It was humbling to say the least. Never say never . . . .
The days leading up to Christmas we had freezing temperatures for several days and were fortunate to not have any issues from that. Christmas Eve morning the boys woke up to a bag of gourmet popcorn left by Cooper. I suppose that was his parting gift as it was time for him to fly back to the North Pole until next December.
Of course, we had to make cookies for Santa. Decorating the cookies is not something Casen loves to do, so he only decorated two and left the rest for Camden and I to decorate.
That night, we attended the candlelight Christmas Eve service to celebrate the birth of Jesus and then came home and prepared for Santa's arrival.
On Christmas morning the boys found their stockings that Santa left and Camden scored $17 off of lottery tickets. They then found their big gifts that Santa left by the tree. Camden received a laptop and Casen a Meta 2 virtual reality system.
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| Winner, winner chicken dinner! |
We then all opened our gifts.
Later that morning, Shane's parents and Ira came and then a bit later his sister and her family came to celebrate Christmas and eat a late lunch. The boys had a great time playing with their cousins with the new technology they all received for Christmas.
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| After everyone left, the boys played more VR. So fun! |
My parents were supposed to come the day after Christmas for the Key family Christmas, however my dad fell on Christmas Eve and fractured a rib and then on Christmas day he ended up having an allergic reaction after wearing a mask, which he has never worn before, to smoke his bees. Upon returning to their casita after smoking his bees, mom said dad already had facial and neck swelling and was talking like Donald Duck. Despite her medicating him with Benadryl, he was still having a lot of swelling so called Teledoc to get steroids started. Mom sent the following picture on Christmas Day to show me his swelling. When I sent it to Melissa, she commented that he looked like Tim Allen from Santa Clause. I hadn't thought about that, but she was right!
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| The Key Crew |
It was a great Christmas season with family and we are looking forward to our upcoming week off and plan on just hanging out and relaxing.
