The Johnson's: Dec 26: Merry Christmas!

I decided to "splurge" this year and take a full week off work over the Christmas holiday. My work schedule is very hectic from December until mid-February(I know, when is it ever not?!), so taking a week was truly a splurge. I did have to work remotely for part of one day, but I was still out of the office! We spent Christmas with the Chalker family in Greeneville, TN at Kirstin & Lee's home. All of us were able to be there, which is the first time in several years. We were able to get a complete family photo which was one of my main goals after learning that we would all be able to make it! The funny part of the photo-taking process, is that while we were waiting for the camera to be set up for remote shooting, Erik started kicking Jake in the back. I tried to hold Erik closer to me and further from Jake, but that didn't work very well. Then Erik started putting his feet on Jake's shoulder, so I decided to go with it and just put Erik on Jake's shoulders! Jake was a great sport and actually thought it was great fun. Erik does love his big cousins!

The complete Chalker Family!

I found that I did have the typical Florida-resident problem of packing for warmer weather than what we actually encountered, so I was cold a good part of the time we were there! In my defense, I had looked at the weather forecast before packing and the temps weren't that different from Florida, really. However, a cold & wet weather system came through the day after we arrived (no idea why that wasn't forecasted!!). Oh well, thankfully, I did pack significantly warmer clothes for Erik! I also did one better than inadequately packing: since we flew up almost 6 days before Christmas, I decided that I would finish my Christmas shopping in Greeneville, assuming that everywhere has stores just like Orlando does! A big oops on my part! Greeneville has a Wal-mart, Belk's and a JCPenney's and that's about it unless you drive over an hour to a larger city. I was flabbergasted! How do people live like that?!! (I know, I know, I'm totally spoiled) Thank goodness for Amazon prime & free 2-day shipping. :)

Even with my Floridian issues, we had a wonderfully relaxing time while in Tennessee. Due to the wet weather, we couldn't spend much time outdoors, but had a lot of toys to occupy us indoors. Kirstin's house had 2 separate flights of stairs, which Erik absolutely loved! Kent & I were on constant alert, being prepared to jump up from whatever we were doing to rush to the stairs to monitor Erik. I think we climbed up & down the stairs 20 times a day. Made me so very thankful for my 1-story house in Florida. By the end of the week, Erik was begging to go outside to play and wouldn't want to go back in even if he was cold & wet! Kirstin & Lee also have a terrier-type dog, Stella - Erik would follow that poor long-suffering dog around saying "daw, daw", patting it, poking it and even trying to ride it! And no, Erik's fascination with the dog doesn't mean that he will get one of his own. :)