Ketchup

There once was a Mommy Tomato, a Daddy Tomato, and Baby Punk Tomato. They were walking along, as only tomatoes can do, but the Baby Punk was always behind and they always had to wait for him, so the Daddy squashed him and said:




"Ketchup!"




Oh. Whew. Not sure what happened there. Sorry. Reverting to my childhood a little, there. The point is that I have some catching up to do here since I didn't bother to blog at all for the first three days of Christmas, so calling birds, french hens, turtle doves and a partridge to you all.

Uh...

Anyway. Our Christmas time has been flying by in a haze of running hither and yon, and this little pastor's family is tired.

BUT! We're very happy to be looking forward to a vacation! An actual, real, darn-tootin' VACATION. Because we're leaving, on an actual jet plane, for Oregon in two weeks.

TWO WEEKS!

We're making use of some cheap-off-season-plane-tickets-turned-ridiculously-expensive that were bought for us by some very generous blood-relations who actually miss us and wish for us to come visit. (Particularly my brother, who is heading off on his next adventure at the end of January.)

So we're gonna get a little January relaxin'!

That is, after we get through all the stress and anxiety of figuring out exactly how to keep our house warmish while we're gone and how to keep the animals from starving or being eaten by that fox I saw the other day and how exactly to fit enough warm clothes into as few pieces of luggage as possible because we have to pay for them.

Are we crazy to be driving two hours to Detroit and then flying through Chicago in JANUARY? I'm certainly praying for some gooooood weather at DTW and O'Hare and PDX...

So I need to start acquiring some good airplane entertainment for a 4-year old. This is always a challenge when we fly-- keeping the boy busy. But I have to admit that it's gotten WAY easier than it was when he was a baby. So I really should enjoy this last time of slightly-easier-flying before I have to start flying with a baby again. It occurred to me that I should dig around and see if I still have that portable cassette player (you know... "tapes"? Remember those?) that I used when I was about 10. It's probably long gone, but I'm thinkin' Jonah would probably happily sit and listen to tapes for the whole trip. Maybe I can get one cheap on Ebay...

And speaking of "baby"... at that point, when we leave I'll just be getting to the point in my pregnancy where my jeans don't fit anymore, but maternity pants are of course, enormous. They don't tell you about that part, you know. That looooong in-between time when nothing fits. A friend just lent me her Bella Band, so I'm hoping that will get me through...

Okay, so now I'm really rambling and I'm sure I sound ridiculous. It's just that my head is gonna explode with all the stuff running round in it... Our departure date is not very far away... Did I mention I would be gone for over two weeks? Nathan will return after about 6 days, but Jonah and I will be staying longer to get the fullest use out of our visit.

It's gonna be GREAT!

***insert panic dance here***