The End

I'm glad we got to go up to Provo for Christmas, even if it was a pukey Christmas, we still had a good time. Rachel got to be pretty crabby and argumentative while we were up there. And we had some tough times getting her to go to sleep. We decided it must be because she was so out of her normal routine. Next time we'll remember that she needs her regular routine even more when we're on vacation—same discipline, and the same bedtime, not staying up late, and not skipping part of the bedtime routine.

On the drive back home we stopped at a hotel in Mesquite, Nevada. This is almost the only time when she was actually happy while we were there, when we were almost ready to leave in the morning and she was playing with Annie:

That night at the hotel was by far the worst night. The whole drive down she would randomly start crying saying, “I miss Aunt Cari.” Occasionally she would say she missed Grandma or Grandpa or another one of her aunts, too. But once we were in the hotel trying to sleep it was more “I want to go home!” “I want to sleep in my bedroom!” With big tears and everything you imagine when you hear the word tantrum. We tried driving her around, and everything else we could think of, but she was so beyond tired she could not calm herself down enough to go to sleep. Finally we put on a movie and by the end of it she was asleep. At 2 am. Then she was up at 7am again crying, “I want to go home!” And kept crying that in about half hour intervals the whole way home. What a pleasant ride home. ;) But we were all so happy when we finally did pull in to our driveway. Except for Rachel who didn't want to eat at home. "I want to go to a restaurant!" Silly girl.

I have so much more respect for my parents who drove us all the way up to Idaho every summer and occasionally at Christmas, too, for most of our childhood years when it was probably the hardest to travel that far. And without a portable DVD player, too!

As for crabby, crying, argumentative Rachel, after 2 nights of sleeping in her own bed, she pretty much returned to her normal, happy, 3-year-old self, thankfully. It's amazing what a little familiarity will do for a 3-year-old.
One big blessing we found upon returning home was that my mom was going to be released to go home early. Her goal date to get out of rehab was January 10th. When we got home on Wednesday she told me they said she'd probably be able to go home a week early, the 3rd or 4th. Thursday she had a doctor's appointment and was okayed to be able to put some weight on her arms, which helps a ton in her mobility, being able to use her arms to balance with a walker while she balances on her one leg she's allowed to put weight on. Then later Thursday she was told she'd be going home Friday. So as one of the best ways to kick off the new year Mom is at home. Woohoo! She's had so many people praying for her there's no way she couldn't get better, and to do it so quickly is a miracle. Really, the docs at the hospital originally said she might be in the hospital for a month. She was out of the hospital in a week, and home from rehab just 3 weeks after the accident. If that's not a miraculous recovery, I don't know what is. It's a good thing we came back from Utah early or she would have either been stuck at rehab over the weekend, or Dad would have put himself back in the hospital from moving furniture out of the way to get things ready for her hospital bed and such and we would have had two patients who couldn't walk to take care of. :) At least they would have been gimps together. ;)

And thus ends 2010, the year of hospitals: Jacob in February with Steve, Dad in May with his back surgery, me and Annie in October when Annie was born, Mom in December thanks to a big truck, and Rachel squeezing in that Christmas Eve visit to the ER.
Here's to 2011 being hospital free! Happy New Year!!

Grandpa is Retiring

We decided to leave on Tuesday to beat the big winter storm that was blowing through on Wednesday. (We had originally planned on staying longer, but not wanting to abandon my mom for too long in the hospital, and because of weather, we cut it a little shorter than the original plan.) We stuck around for Rod's retirement reception on Tuesday afternoon, first, though.

We got to get a whole family picture while we were there.

Between these two photos we've got everyone looking. Photoshop here we come...

Jacob's cousin, Janie, made the cutest little ponchos for the girls and delivered them to us at the reception.

Janie wasn't satisfied with how Rachel's turned out, saying it was too small, and she plans on making another one that's bigger, but Rachel had so much fun walking around in it being Little Orange Riding Hood. And Annie is just so cute in it. I love them!

Congrats, Grandpa, on your retirement! Anytime now Grandma and Grandpa Campbell will be getting their mission call for parts unknown. My guess is to be church service missionaries in Eastern Asia, like Thailand, or China or something. Or CES missionaries in Tucson. :) It'll be fun to see where they actually end up going. We'll get to see them again once more before they go because they're coming down to Mesa in a few weeks and we'll drive up to see them, but it was fun being able to spend some time with them this Christmas.

Temple Square Lights

Later Monday afternoon we headed up to Temple Square to see the temple and all the pretty Christmas lights. Cari, Lisa, Mark, Ashley, and Lena came with us. It was pretty cold, but we all survived.

Snow fun

Sunday Rachel was still a bit under the weather and had a fever so she stayed home from church. Monday, though she seemed to be over the worst of the illness, so se decided to take advantage of what snow was left from the big dump of snow they'd gotten a week earlier and we went up to Rock Canyon park to go sledding. The snow was just patchy, but good enough for us Arizona people.

Rachel liked the first run, but after that she wasn't incredibly thrilled with sledding. She didn't like the bump at the bottom of the hill because it hurt her leg or her bum every time. But if you asked her about it after the fact she'd tell you sledding was awesome.

She had been looking forward to throwing snowballs for weeks, so after the sledding lost its appeal I told her to throw a snowball at Daddy's bum. She thought that was the funniest thing ever and did it over and over and over.

Christmas Day

Christmas started with me feeling better, but Rachel throwing up every half hour or so until she laid down for a nap. This picture pretty much exemplifies how she was feeling all morning:

Trying to be excited about Christmas and her stocking stuff, but just not feeling good.
While she napped the rest of the family enjoyed story time:

When Rachel woke up from her nap we got some Tylenol in her and started opening presents and the presents seemed to be the magical cure. She started acting more like herself.

Daddy and Rachel both got their own RC cars to play with and race against each other.

Rachel had a ball playing with Aunt Cari and with Lenalee in all the wrapping paper after the present opening was done.

Annie pretty much slept through opening the presents. See her there in the corner in the picture above? When she did wake up, though, she was in a good mood:

I love this picture--Scat and Rachel in a battle of wills over who will eat the cereal.

Anyway, overall Christmas was pretty fun once we got past the yucky morning junk. It was nice to have everyone together and enjoy each other's company.

Christmas Eve

After getting to Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's house on Friday we let Rachel stay up a little late because it was the first chance in a long time to play with aunts and uncles and her cousin Lenalee.

She loved all the attention and tickling and fun her aunts poured on her the whole time we were there .

Lena was not one ounce shy. She loved to have me hold her and play with her even though I've mostly been a face on the computer for most of her life. She seemed to especially want me to hold her if I was already holding Rachel or Annie. She is such a cutie!

Annie got her fair share of attention, too. And was more than willing to share a few smiles.

Letting Rachel stay up late that night was a mistake. When it was bedtime she was overtired, which makes it impossible to expect cooperation from an extra tired 3-year-old. By the time she actually laid down I was beginning to feel a little yucky. Then as soon as her head hit her pillow she started crying and said, “My ear hurts!” She couldn't be comforted, and Annie was starting to be fussy, and I was feeling even worse, so Jake decided to take Rachel to the ER. Shortly after they were out the door, I was trying to calm Annie down and had to set her down and promptly threw up. Thankfully I wasn't somewhere by myself, like a hotel room or back at home. Jake's family took care of Annie and me and by the time Jake and Rachel got back Annie was asleep and I was feeling a little better. Rachel had a double ear infection, and the codeine they gave her at the ER knocked her out pretty well pretty quickly. Not exactly how we had planned on spending Christmas Eve.

Utah trip-the drive

We had been planning for quite a while to spend Christmas with Jacob's family, but with my mom getting run over by a car we kind of suspended the plans until we knew how my mom was doing. When I told her we may not be going to Utah she gave me a good talking to: “You have to go! I'll feel so bad if you don't go because of me!” I told her we'd wait and see how rehab was going, and when she was obviously improving and being able to do a bit more on her own we decided we'd plan on going, but still reserve the chance of canceling until the day we were leaving. Mom told me, “If you guys do stay around here, don't plan on coming to visit me because you won't be welcome!”

So we went. We left on Thursday afternoon and drove up to Flagstaff, then drove the rest of the way to Provo on Friday. The drive was way better than I'd expected. Annie slept the whole time the car was moving, waking up only to eat every 3-4 hours. Rachel was entertained mainly by the portable DVD player, and a few books and other activities. So what I thought would be the worst part was actually one of the less stressful parts of the vacation. We also stopped at the top of highway 20 to play with snow for the first time that Rachel can remember. It was really dry, so she had a hard time packing snowballs, but had fun anyway, until the cold got to her.