Life in the Burbs

I know it’s been a few days since my last post, but we have been pretty busy the last few days. Actually, busy isn’t the most accurate word. We’ve just had a lot of activities that have seriously decreased my computer time (which I don’t consider a bad thing, by the way), including traveling to Wyoming (a two-day drive), visiting with friends and family, and resting.

We left Springfield early on Friday morning, and the travel conditions were pretty much ideal all the way. We stopped briefly in Omaha, NE, for dinner with Auntie Flo, then stayed the night in Lexington, NE. If you aren’t familiar with Nebraska, then chances are you have never heard of Lexington. I am familiar with Nebraska, and I’d never heard of Lexington. Anyway, we got back on the road early Saturday morning and arrived in Casper about 3:30 that afternoon. The boys traveled like champs, and they were very excited to see their GiGi and PaPa. My sister and her family were supposed to arrive later that night, but the huge snowstorm (that’s been all over the news) kept them stranded in Virginia. They were able to catch a flight on Monday, and they arrived late that night.

We have had a great time hanging out together, and the cousins are having a ball. Their favorite activities so far are singing Christmas carols, playing with the train set GiGi borrowed from a friend and riding the Christmas train at the mall.

On Sunday, before the Murrays arrived, my parents had an open house for friends of the family to drop in and say hello. The twins were a hit in their Christmas outfits GiGi made for them, and they loved meeting all the new people. They especially liked all the yummy snacks sitting out for the taking.

I’m sure there will be a couple more updates before we have to head back to Illinois, but for now just let me say the trip has been wonderful and very restful. It snowed all day today, so unless an infamous Wyoming wind comes up tonight, chances are pretty good we’ll have a white Christmas. Gina is pretty excited about that, and even though I grew up here, I have seen only a handful of them myself. It will be a special day for everyone.

Yes, there is a definite Western theme going on in the Alexander home. My Uncle Clay and Aunt Gail gave the boys these cowboy hats at Thanksgiving, and they have had a great time wearing them around the house. One sure-fire sign of a real cowboy is if he wears his cowboy hat with pajamas. Obviously, we have the real McCoy in our homestead.

Sam and Nate have really enjoyed some of the activities that come with winter and Christmas. Over the weekend we went to the mall to walk around and let the boys catch all the sights and sounds of Christmas. They rode the little train all by themselves with no drama.

In what turned out to be  a total role reversal, Nate rode the carousel all by himself (actually, I was standing right next to him). Sam had a minor meltdown brought on by having to WAIT for the ride to start. He and Gina walked around the mall and rode the escalator while Nate and I went round and round.

We then sat down for a nice lunch in the food court. Again, Nate ate a little of everything but Sam was partial to the chicken fingers. In Sam’s defense, he has not felt very well the last couple of days, so his tolerance for anything new or out of the ordinary is pretty low. Even so, it was strange to see our “calm” child freaking out about everything and our “dramatic” child taking everything in stride. I guess this is what we get for putting labels on our children (which we really don’t do, by the way).

Earlier in the week, Gina took the boys out for a quick romp in the snow. This was not a huge snow, and the majority of it was gone by noon, but it was still fun to bundle the boys up and watch them explore their icy surroundings. This is just a small taste of what they will see in Wyoming in a few days. Hopefully there is some snow for them to play in, either in town or on the mountain.

I have been meaning to post this for awhile, but I just got around to it. Sam and Nate got to take their first “ride” on a horse. Sam was pretty excited by the whole event, but Nate pretty much screamed. I have a short video of them taking turns sitting on the horse with Callie Kay.

Gina, the boys and I started getting the house ready for Christmas this week. I started by putting up our tree, then Gina and the boys have been decorating a little at a time all week. We are leaving town again in a couple of weeks, so we aren’t going all out with the decorating, but we wanted to make it look like Christmas at our house at least a little bit. The boys haven’t quite caught on to the decorating thing, but they do like seeing Christmas lights on the houses in our neighborhood. Nate got the Christmas season kicked off right by doing his best Rudolph impersonation with ketchup, then Sam did an interpretation of “… settled in for a long winter’s nap …” at the end of lunch.