Happy Happy Holidays!!!

Well, we made it through the holidays! Miraculously, considering how much happened! We got our engines started December 15th at a Christmas cocktail party at our good friends Rob and Pam's house in NJ. We seized the opportunity of a night out with no kids and had a delicious dinner at a new restaurant as well. A wonderful way to celebrate my birthday, even if it was the day after. The next week we jumped in the car and drove out to Long Island to celebrate the holidays with Aunt Debbie, Uncle Ron & the boys who lavished the gals with love and presents. Hannah is lucky to have such thoughtful godparents. Riley woke up the next morning, threw on her costume and was a beautiful angel in our church's annual Christmas Pageant. The next evening 'twas the night before Christmas, so we headed to Aunt Jean and Uncle Lawrence's where the cousins basically ran rampant (Hannah included) from 5PM to 10PM at which point they collapsed in the car for the drive home. Turned out that Santa was very generous this year and Riley did NOT get the coal that she repeatedly predicted. (Don't ask - I have no idea) After unwrapping tons of presents and a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Ettinger, we headed to Papa Walt's place in Kerhonkson for a very nice relaxing Christmas Day. Were we ready to slow down yet? No way - the following evening saw us at the Bronx Zoo for the "Holiday Lights"and we got to spend some fun time with just the four of us and Riley and Hannah particularly enjoyed seeing reindeer closeup. Two days later, we were back in the car driving to Vienna, VA for Aunt Renee's Wedding!! Riley and Paige were the two cutest flower girls ever and Hannah didn't look so bad herself. The wedding and reception were beautiful and we had a great time. We did some sightseeing in DC and Philly and then, because we're totally insane, we went to a New Year's Eve party at our friends Becky and John's with more playtime for the girls until about 8:30PM when we finally surrendered to our fatigue and dragged our butts home to the biggest mess you've ever seen. I'm still working on it but as you can see, I'm blogging again, so I guess I've made some progress. OH! We also stopped for lunch at Friendly's in Newark, DE to see Joe, Charmaine and Hannah's old pal from the orphanage, Lily! It's already amazing to see the change in these girls since they were in China together. We hope to see them again soon. Well, I've rambled long enough...Rob is in tech for a show in New Haven,CT for the week so I'm single-momming it right now. So far, so good. Then again, it's only been a day. Riley is back to school and I'm back to teaching and honestly, the return to a routine is very comforting. Of course, Hannah's 2nd birthday hits in about 3 weeks, so I'd better not get too comfortable. There will be pix of that on the blog for sure. Hope everybody is healthy and well and here's to a wonderful, unpredictable new year!! Enjoy the pix!!