The holidays seem to be over now, but they seemed to be over before they even got started. We were having a stay-cation kind of Christmas this year anyway, but Beth's anxiety has been through the roof for weeks now, Natalie's is not much better, and Mom just died. Not sure anyone really felt like it. We never even got any decorations up, except the Christmas tree, and that only days before vacation. There weren't even any ornaments on it this year. And I went in to work on Monday the 23rd, just to get a few things finished up, and stayed nearly all day. We went out to dinner on the 24th at Texas Road House with Mary Jane, had Christmas at home (Beth always wants to do a big dinner, and this year she has had no chance to, but she made a big dinner for us anyway (ham) that had us all wondering who exactly was going to eat all this food). The big ticket items this year were clothes for Natalie (almost exclusively), some video games and accessories for Alex, and some movies, a dragon puppet, and some Pop figures for Missy. I got Beth a puzzle that had too many pieces so she returned it the next day when we went to FW on the day after Christmas to return stuff; she got me some new sweatshirts that didn't fit very well so I returned those too. The kids also had some gift cards to spend at B&N or Think Geek or somewhere.....Saturday the 28th we all (except Natalie) went up to Michigan to visit family for Christmas. We thought the family gathering was at 1:00 so we were there a bit early since it started at 3. So nobody was at Stephanie's house, so we went to get pizza and came back later. It was a nice time, we had snacks and played a home version of Telestrations with a live-cast on the TV to show off the drawings. We headed back in the evening so we wouldn't be too late. Sunday Laura and Thomas (and Chloe) stopped by for a visit on their way back from Chicago. They got here in the afternoon; we all went out to a nice dinner at Boathouse and got pizza for the kids. Then we played Wizard in the evening. On Monday they came over again in the morning and Laura and I did some planning for Mom's funeral in Kalamazoo. We're looking at the 11th. They departed for home by midday......Beth and I decided that it would be easier for us to arrange the funeral if we went to the funeral home in person so we made an appointment in Kalamazoo for the next day. Alex had to work, but we all arranged for Alex and Missy to go to the Monsma's for NYE and do a sleepover. Beth and Natalie and I all headed up to Michigan again on new year's eve and face-timed with Laura as we met with the funeral directors to get everything for next weekend set up. We were back for the new year's ball drop, which we just did at home......I decided at the last minute to run the Polar Dash 4-miler again. The weather was actually pretty nice....On Thursday, I went back to work since we didn't have much going on and it seemed a waste to burn 2 vacation days this early in the year......Beth took the kids to Pottery Bayou on Friday since there wasn't much else to do.....Today we all drove up to Goshen to go to a fro-yo sundae place, because we miss having any in Warsaw.