The return of the absent

Halloooo there! I. Am. Back. With a much bigger belly than when you last heard of me. I can imagine your nostrils beginning to flair every time you checked to see if I had decided to grace you again with my thoughts-in-writing only to observe that way too many days “after the holidays” I still had not written. Well well now, no need to get feisty. If I described in detail what my days have consisted of lately you would fall flat on your back from exhaustion. So instead of boring you with the to-do list of a pregnant woman in a way too hot environment, I’ll recap some of our amazing trip to the States United, minus the parts I already wrote about.
After surviving The Death (cold virus), crunching in six-inch snow (in Louisiana of all places!) making it through two whole days of no power (due to a measly six inches of snow), and being completely showered with gifts for the sweet wee one growing within me, our trip to Cajun land was wrapping up to its sad end. One of my favorite parts of the whole snow fiasco was the fact that without the distractions that light reveals, the entire Smith family spent long periods of time toasting our shivering selves around the fireplace talking, reminiscing, keeping Anna Kate away from the blaze, eating Raising Cane’s (the best chicken fingers and dipping sauce on planet earth) and simply enjoying the comfort of family familiarity. Interesting. The similarity between the words family and familiarity. Praise be to our Lord, the power came back just in time for us to kick into frenzy mode and cook an early Christmas dinner (my participation being baking a completely-from-scratch apple pie…mmm, delicious) so that we could celebrate an early Smith family Christmas. It was a blast! Thank you Smithers, for a wonder filled time!
On to Indy. The land of grandparent’s house memories and late nights playing games and watching movies. My beloved parents live in Indianapolis, and at the time so do my oldest brother Mark, who is fighting cancer the hard, slow and natural way (you are my hero Mark, and not because you are fighting something dreadful, just simply because you are a good man who loves and follows God faithfully) and also my brother David, his wife and my best friend Hanzi, and their two adorables, Katelyn and Emma. So. Nine of us under one roof. Chaotic? Hmm…yes. But 100% worth every minute. And I MEAN everyyyy minute. I love my family. So much. I just can’t get over how blessed God has made me by my “accident” of birth. Anyway. After spending some much needed family re-bonding in Indy, we loaded up the cars and headed to Springfield, Missery, ahem…Missouri, so that my whole entire family (with the exception of Yanira who we missed so much) could spend Christmas together where the last of my brothers live, Steve and Danny, along with Steve’s wife Marisha, who soon will be delivering another adorable into this world, and their daughter Roma. Due to the fact that there were thirteen of us by then, we split up and stayed in two different homes. Still chaotic? While yes, of course, but still worth every minute. First things first, Jason and Danny set forth to find a worthy Christmas tree to cut down for the festivities. One of the finest parts of Christmas atmosphere making is getting a REAL tree. Don’t ever get a fake one ok? Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it. If you can’t afford the pricey nursery ones, go scout the woods for one like we did. They returned triumphantly back to the house with the most charming, somewhat scraggly tree I have ever seen. So far, it is my favorite Christmas tree of all time. After much trial and error, we finally finagled a way to keep the tree upright, and there it was. Oh Christmas tree.
So for the next several days we visited each other back and forth from house to house, made and decorated sugar cookies, some of which looked amazingly artistic and others that well, looked…questionable (such as Jason’s purplish-grayish…slush man?), watched more movies, played tons of video games, I mean, the GUYS played a bunch of video games, shot off loads of firecrackers and such, opened the most presents you have ever seen under a tree, and just had an all out good old time. Aaahhh. L’ famille…Is that even French? Dunno. It sounds like it though. Heh.
This post is getting long, so I’ll wrap it up with the grand finale. We trekked back to Indy for a few more days, had our tearful goodbyes, and then flew to Miami to spend a few days of fun in the sun (finally some warmth!) with Tessa and Daniel, some of our favorite friends remember? We hooted and hugged our way through the New Year at Daniel’s sister’s house, where we had an all-out Latin New Year’s celebration with even more firecrackers and such. Aahh…L’ Amie…now that, is French. Then, we headed to the WRONG airport, of which I saved the day by simply asking a question…such as: Jason, are we flying out of Miami airport or Fort Lauderdale (this I asked after noticing the Miami skyscraper and thinking that during this entire trip we had never flown INTO Miami). He answered that we were flying out of Fort Lauderdale, of which Tessa thought he was joking, so I said nothing more, and then Tessa said we were driving to Miami, of which Jason thought we were joking with him, and after a few minutes of total confusion, we all realized the horror. Wrong airport. I do believe we are the only people this has ever happened to. Ever. Somehow (with Tessa’s madwoman driving abilities) we made it to our flight in time, were bumped to first class, uuuuu, and enjoyed the rest of the way home.
Now we are slammed with a about 873 different things going on…but that is for another day, once your eyes become uncrossed from reading so much. Adieu.

My Super Snowman

Mark wishing he could eat anything other than a salad

Men being boys...oh how I love it though!

p.s. I will have to upload the rest of the pictures later because it has taken me about an hour to upload these and quite frankly, I´m tired. I´ll do my best to get the rest on here as soon as possible!