I mentioned in my last post that my mother in law has been in the hospital, and it was pretty serious, we could have easily lost her had she not gotten to the hospital when she did and they got her internal bleeding controlled. They had to give her a COMPLETE blood transfusion because she had lost THAT MUCH BLOOD. It was not a good situation.
Her family isn't close, and they are scattered all over.
Everyone was freaking out though because they were afraid they'd lose her, so they got together paying for a hotel for everyone. So my sister in law and my niece, and my husband and myself and our 3 kids (and our 2 dogs but I'll get to that in a minute) went to stay there as well.
My husband was so happy. He hadn't seen most of these people since he was 5 years old. He had envisioned this awesome family reuniont where they sat around playing cards and talking.
Poor man, got totally blind sided.
Talking is the last thing that went on.
More like every 45min a fight would break out, if it managed to last that long.
It was absolutely INSANE!
I've never seen so much fighting. I kept my kids and I upstairs in our hotel room (with my niece) most of the time. I didn't want the kids around all of that. My kids aren't used to all of that commotion and fighting and adults acting like children.
The ONE TIME I left my kids downstairs in the main hotel room, they had just gotten out of the pool and were hungry and the dogs needed to be walked so they stayed in the main hotel room with the other kids their age and they ate lunch while I walked the dogs for like 15min. Only to come back in to find that a fight had broken out AGAIN while my children were in that room. TICKED me off. Seriously? You are going to fight and argue like that infront of CHILDREN? So I rushed back to the room (my sons had fallen asleep while eating lunch). My daughter, when I got into the room had her knees drawn up to her chin hugging her knees and had this wide eyed scared look on her face. She flung her arms around my neck and said "Mommy those girls hurt my ears and scared me I want to go home" I waited for the boys to wake up from their nap, which didn't take long and we went back up to our hotel room with all of the other kids as well and we made cookies. Which the kids really really loved.
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| The kids decorating the cookies they baked |
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| Sweet little Katie! |
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| My little Keegan |
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| Sweet little Annabelle |
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| Mmm lots of frosting ;) |
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| They had a lot of fun decorating those cookies! |
We didn't go back downstairs until supper was ready (they had bought LOTS of food and made a huge Christmas dinner there at the hotel for the whole family to eat). It was a nice dinner....but no one was around to eat it while the kids ate. I don't know where everyone was, but the kids and I ate. And my husband and sister in law ate and everyone else was who knows where. Lo and behold though, yet ANOTHER argument broke out (thankfully it was after the kids and I left for upstairs). Now had I had my own vehicle, my kids and I would have just left after the very first argument had even happened. Because I hate having my kids around that.
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| The kids led a non alcoholic "toast" to Christmas, it was so cute! |
I'm glad my mother in law was not there for all of this!! She would have been so stressed out. BUT the part that made ME sad? Was we were all supposed to be there to see HER. Not a single person went to see her (besides when her sisters first arrived in town) other than that? NO ONE went back to see her, and that's what she thought people were going to do.
I wanted to, but again, I couldn't just swipe one of the cars and go see her :( So we were stuck at the hotel.
There was a LOT of family drama, but there were good times too. Individually I like all of my husband's family well enough. They are decent people who have just lived different lives than my husband and I. One family in particular I'm so glad I got to meet. They seem to be a LOT like my husband and I. So Kenny is so glad he got to meet those cousins and their children. They had 4 kids around the same ages as my own children so that was nice.
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| Awww a good family time! Every time I'd go to take a pic more and more people would jump into the picture. I love this picture. |
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| Kenny and Ashley and Faith with their cousin Destiny |
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| Ashley and Faith |
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| Keegan with his great aunt Mary |
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| Keegan with his Daddy |
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| Kenny with 3 of his cousins, Destiny, Sherry and Tasha. |
LOL Although their son who is 6 decided to tell my kids Santa wasn't real. That did NOT end well for him!! My daughter went OFF on him and had her whole "Santa DOES EXIST" speech all lined up and very matter of factly told him all the reasons Santa DID exist and he better not ever say that again. (Proud of my daughter for standing up for herself!) She wasn't mean, didn't yell, just told him point blank all the reasons santa was real. She was ready for a debate! She came prepared. (Maybe she's had this same conversation at preschool already?) Anyway, by the time she was done telling this boy that Santa DID exist, he couldn't argue and said 'OK OK fine you are right!' It was so funny. Marshall and Keegan stood right behind their sister arms crossed looking at that boy nodding their heads after everything their sister was saying and occasionally there would be an "uh huh" thrown in for good measure.
Hilarious.
They handled it well, so I didn't get involved just watched from the side lines. Wish I would have thought to video record the conversation. I think my daughter could have a future as a lawyer....
The kids REALLY enjoyed the inside heated pool, and my sons are part fish. Impossible to get them out of the water unless you bribe them with food.
The breakfast buffet was spectacular! Yum! That was a highlight of our weekend the 2 days we were there.
I loved the fact that the hotel was pet friendly. This trip was VERY spontaneous I wasn't expecting it at all. My sister in law and husband and went down on Friday to visit their mom when all of the family got there to visit her too. We were under the understanding that we would go down the next day to visit for a few hours and come home. Well the husband calls me and casually informs me to "toss some clothes in a bag we were staying in a hotel for a couple of days" I'm sorry. But I do not "casually" toss some clothes in a bag for 3 young kids and myself and husband and I had to pack for my niece too as she was with her mom in the other town and all of her stuff was here, and I had to grab stuff for her mom too. So yeh I was packing for 4 young kids and 3 adults BY MYSELF!
Plus, I had to find something to do with our dogs. I wasn't going to leave them running the house while we were going, nor could I leave them locked in their kennels that long. All of the kennels were booked due to the holidays. The husband said "let them sleep in the car" Um. No. I wouldn't make MY KIDS sleep in the cold car, so why would I make my dogs sleep in the cold car?
Luckily for us, the hotel was even MORE amazing and was pet friendly. Yes!
So the girls got to go along and they really enjoyed the hotel. The front desk gave them dog treats and belly rubs (the woman working the front desk was so amazing!!)
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| Kamilah had a great time playing with her dogs, and the dogs had a blast getting to be with us this weekend! They made themselves right at home. |
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| At home Molly sleeps on the back of the couch, and she made herself right at home at the hotel as well. |
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| Karmen's favorite spot at home as well. |
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| Molly |
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| Karmen |
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| Kamilah and Keegan ready to go to bed and so are Karmen and Molly. |
House keeping would pet and talk to the dogs whenever they saw them too. They had a dog walking area with complimentary poo bags and trash can to clean up after your pets (though I think I'm one of the only ones who did clean up after their dogs, I kept having to dodge land mines from other dogs!)
The dogs had never been on a road trip before, nor had they ever stayed in a hotel before. I must say they were pretty good girls. My dogs and my kids all acted very good while we were out of town. So apparently all of the manners and obedience training I do with my kids and dogs they really ARE learning something and listening because when we are out and about they put those skills into practice. *whew* what a relief!
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| Bed time! |
By Saturday night I was ready to leave though. Had my families stuff packed and ready. I was almost willing to walk home. NO joke. That's how stressful the whole situation was.
Like I said, we did have some good times, and one on one I like my husband's family, but put them all together? It's not such a good thing.
The weekend ended with my HUSBAND in tears (this man NEVER CRIES!!) I ended up crying too which freaked my sister in law as I don't usually ever cry either. It was an emotional train wreck.
My husband is so devastated over the way his family acted, and all the fighting that he never wants to do this again, ever. I don't blame him.
But there is one part of the family like I mentioned that we really like and would love to see again (too bad they are like 4 hours away!)
I loved the fact that my kids got to see so many of their little cousins, and 2 of their great aunts. I'm glad I got to meet these people too. I've always heard stories about these family members, and now I have faces to go with the names. It was confusing for me at first to figure out what kids went with what family though! There were like 13 kids there! My 3 kids, my niece, another 4 kids, another 3 kids and 2 other kids. Took me a minute to get names sorted out and figured out what kids belonged with what parents.
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| Kamilah, Keegan and their cousin Sierra |
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| Kamilah with her cousin Mariah |
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| Kamilah with her cousins Annabelle and Katie (best buddies!) |
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| Annabelle, Kamilah, Katie, Marshall and Keegan (Marshall kept dodging photos all weekend was hard to get him in a pic!) |
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| They really had a great time with the cookies! |
The little kids were sweet silly and fun kids and I had a blast seeing them all play together.
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| Kams taking a sip of her sparkling white grape juice stuff after their "toast" |
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| Keegan |
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| Kamilah |
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| Keegan and Marshall |
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| Kamilah |
Sunday morning my daughter woke me up saying "Mommy, I just want to go home now" Poor kids. They were tired. They were stressed and over whelmed. We tried to keep them away from the drama (for lack of a better word?). Unfortunately that didn't always happen.
The hotel experience was nice, and we enjoyed that part. The family part...that was not what my husband expected, and he said it was a night mare. He was so glad to get home. Certain aspects of the family part were fine. There were moments inbetween the arguing where everyone got along and I snapped several happy photos, and the kids had fun together which is always good. So those are the highlights we are focusing on. Though I STILL have a stress headache and my nerves are still shot!! Things were just a little intense at times. I stayed out of all of it as much as I could, and my husband did too, till a point. He had finally had enough of the fighting and thought he'd step in and throw his 2 cents in. Oy vey. We ended up getting accused of calling the cops (which we did NOT do) but yeh. It was crazy. We ended up leaving sunday morning without saying bye to anyone, that's how irritated my husband was, he didn't want to see any of them. It was a mess. *sigh*
My mother's side of the family may not always get along and like each other...but they know how to hold their tongue and be adult like and NOT argue the entire time. Although...I haven't been a part of any family get togethers in a long while because I live so far away. But from what I can tell, they go just fine, and if someone has a problem, they keep quiet about it or don't go. We don't hash it out infront of everyone (specially not in a public place like a hotel...) We certainly don't say anything in front of children. I don't really know much about my dads side of the family, but I think once upon a time they used to have a crazy get together or two, but not sure how it is anymore I don't think they are so stressful now.
We've went to several of my husband's family reunions in Des Moines, IA for several years and those always went (as far as I could tell) very well. Everyone seemed to have gotten along, no fighting, no yelling, just calm and lots and lots of food hanging out by a beautiful lake. Games of horse shoes, eating fried fish that was caught early that morning, trips to the zoo, playing volley ball, and visiting.
Now I have to get my house in order and start getting things ready for our own Christmas dinner tomorrow with my sister in law and mother in law.
My mother in law got out of the hosptial yesterday, unfortunatley they had to go home last night because she has an appointment with a doctor at 1 today, so they are going home to grab a few things, go to the appointment and they will be back down tonight.
I plan on making crock pot french toast for Christmas morning breakfast. We have to put the ham in the oven tomorrow as well, and I have to make a couple of pies, and I want to make some Christmas candy today (Planned on making it this weekend but that didn't happen).
Off to clean the house up and prepare for Christmas!
Mae
