The Parents 50th Anniversary Trip to Colorado: Day 1

Day 1 started off extra early with a quick run before we woke the girls for the long journey north to celebrate my parent's 50 years of wedded bliss. The plan was to head up to Colorado and spend the night at my parents house, and then drive up early Saturday to Estes Park to meet up with the rest of the family for the weekend.

After the quick run and fast showers the girls were awake and loaded up in the car. The trip was going well for the first thirty minutes until out of nowhere a deer decided to play Frogger with our car. Luckily my cat-like reflexes took over, and I was able to swerve out of the way to keep from killing the deer and preserve our newly rented vehicle. 

We decided that we were going to need to stop in Lamesa and regroup with some coffee and a restroom break. Even though I had only been driving for about forty-five minutes, Pam insisted that it was her turn to drive. Perhaps she just wanted to break up the trip, maybe she just felt it was her turn, or perhaps she realized she and the girls had a better chance of survival with her at the wheel after the deer incident. Either way, Pam was at the helm with Little D riding shotgun after claiming she had a small case of car sickness.

This meant that AK and I would be riding in the back of the car for a long time. Since AK gets as bored as I do, it didn't take long for us to start to invent and play some games. The favorite and soon to be a no-doubt classic was the Big Toe War. 

Big Toe War is very similar to having a thumb war.  AK didn't take long to dominate me in the big toe challenge and claiming ruler of the back seat. We soon grew tired of Big Toe War and AK introduced me to the world of Snapchat and all the photo opportunities to be had. My eager little ADHD brain was mesmerized by the magical camera before my eyes. AK quickly turned me into a mouse, a princess and a donkey. But truth be told, my favorite was when AK swapped our faces!

With AK and I having entirely too much fun in the backseat, Pam decided she needed a break from the road and all the ruckus from the back of the car. We stopped to refuel and relieve ourselves at the local Toot-N-Totem in Amarillo.

We were soon back on the road, and I was once again quarterback of the car. I was commenting to Pam how well the hurry-up-offense was going when I noticed the fuzz coming over the hill. It didn't take long for the lights to come on. Luckily Pam was riding shotgun on this leg of the trip, and the trooper walked up to the passenger side window. She put on her charm, and I was let off with a warning!

We continued to aggravate the travel gods as we soon hit road construction the rest of the way through Texas. We even were stopped and had to wait about twenty minutes for a pilot car to come and flag us through the construction. We ended up finally making it out Texas and had no more issues as we passed through the corner of New Mexico and into Colorado.

With the girls complaining of hunger, Pam made the quick decision to pull into the Burger King in Trinidad. Pam picked Burger King because she is trying to catch up to win the Coolest Parent of the Year Award. So whatever the kids want, the kids get! We must have waited a solid twenty-five minutes for our food. Soon people who were in line behind us started to get their food while we still waited. Since the wait was long and there was nothing else to do, Pam decided to declare both of us the King and Queen of the Burger King in Trinidad!

With our newly acquired royalty titles and food in hand we got back in the car and continued the journey north. The girls chowed down on their chicken sandwiches while Pam mowed through her chili cheese dog in record time. The rest of the trip came with no more delays or stops as both girls were just eager to make it to Papa and Grandma's house!

It was good to see them both. Papa discovered the day before he has a kidney stone. Poor guy has been in pain but still going to tough it out for the big trip to Estes on Saturday. We enjoyed relaxing and visiting with them after the long car ride. Grandma decided to make her favorite child his favorite meal. We all enjoyed the amazing Italian beef sandwiches for dinner!

After dinner we relaxed and watched the best team in baseball lose once again to the poorest team in the league. Even though the Cubs lost, it was still nice to get to watch the game with my dad. After a long day of travel and more ahead for tomorrow, it was time to call it a night and prepare for another great day in celebrating my parents anniversary!

Quick Cousins Trip to Chicago Day 1

Day one started off extra early as I had to catch the red eye to Dallas to hit my connector to Chicago. Getting up early was not hard as Pam and I got little rest. Poor Little D came down either with the stomach bug, or she decided she was going to try out for the next Exorcist movie. Either way, her projectile vomiting was rather impressive to see, but not to have to clean up!

I took a quick shower, got dressed and looked at my lottery ticket. You can imagine how excited I was to learn I would get to return to work the following week! I know it is going to be hard to break the news to my fellow coworkers Julie and Karen about the loss. I had told them I would share the sizable amount of ten dollas each if I had won. I still do not know how I am going to break the news to them when I return, as I already regret seeing their sad faces when they find out!

Both flights were on time and travel was going well. I got into Chicago early and had no issues at the rental car facility. My sister Katie, was coming in from Colorado and I had about an hour to kill before her flight arrived.

Since I had flown into Midway I decided to go to the local White Castle's establishment to get a cup of coffee. This is the same place my dad would stop in over forty years ago to get a cup before work. I remember him telling me White Castles always had the best coffee. I didn't get any of the burgers, but I did enjoy my cup. I looked out the window down Cicero and wondered what occupied the thoughts of the much younger version of my father when he was hurrying in to get a cup of coffee and hurrying back out to get to work?

I still had some time to kill, so I decided to head over to the first house my parents lived in when they got married. It is really close to the airport and I thought they might like to see a picture of it. I called my mom and she gave me directions. I was soon in front of their old house being the weird guy taking pictures in broad day light. There was an older lady who was looking out the window at me. She didn't seem to happy I was snapping pictures, so I decided I had what I needed and headed off to pick Katie up.

Katie was waiting for me when we arrived and as usual, she was very excited to see her favorite little brother. With Katie loaded up it was time to head to the greatest pizza dinning establishment known to man. Home Run Inn! The plan was to have lunch with my Auntie Cookie and Cousin Kathy from my dad's side of the family.

I absolute adore my Auntie Cookie. She has always been one of my favorite people in the world and she treated us kids very well when we were little tike's! Both her and Cousin Kathy looked great. Kathy is my dad's first cousin and very close to him in age. She gave Katie and I some insight and great stories on what he was like as a child. We now know why Jeff and Denny were so wild growing up!

The pizza was wonderful, but the company was even better. Getting good quality pizza in Midland, Texas is a hard thing to do, unless you consider Pizza Hut quality??? Which I don't!  We can now get Home Run Inn frozen pizza in the stores, but eating in the restaurant is always better! On a scale of one-to-five, Katie gave Home Run Inn the rare score of a five while pizza sauce dripped down her face!

As all good things, it was time for it to come to an end and head out to our next stop. We said our good bye's and with a few hugs and kisses later we were on our way to Aunt Sue's house. The plan was to stay at Aunt Sue's for the night and meet up with Cousin Beth and her son Johnny for dinner.

We found our way across town in no time. Katie and I both enjoyed sitting and visiting with Aunt Sue. After awhile, Beth arrived with Johnny. We were soon putting down several of my new favorite beer called Spotted Cow. Beth claims you can only get it in Wisconsin. Which is a bummer for me. I guess it just means that I will have to load up on it while I am in town! After several beers we found ourselves chowing down on some Italian beef sandwiches. They are another wonderful Chicago delicacy that is hard to find in West Texas. I know I enjoyed my sandwich, and I am pretty sure Katie enjoyed hers since she had licked her plate clean!

It was a fun night of hanging out, talking and catching up. Day one was great, but no doubt day two will be even better as we will get to visit with more aunts and uncles, get more nourishment from the Spotted Cow, and head up to Wisconsin and let the Cousins Weekend officially kick off! Rumor has it...Cousin Beth might even get us a few White Castle burgers to eat on the way.

Desparrois Family Vacation on the Fly Day 7 & 8

Day 7:

The day started out a little later than most of the mornings in Colorado. Maybe it was the fact that Pam and I actually got to sleep on a king size bed rather than the full size bed at my parents; or perhaps it was the fact that maybe we had a too many free cocktails while we were at the tables. Either way, the rest was welcomed and we woke up refreshed and ready to hit the tables for some more gambling debauchery and fun!

We enjoyed The Isle of Capri and would definitely consider staying there again. The price was decent, the room was huge, and they treated us well with comps. After a quick shower, we checked out and headed down to the buffet. The food was okay, but nothing worthwhile to really note. We each had an omelet with Pam giving the buffet two forks out of five for lack of any fresh fruit and very few options. We are not going to complain since it was free of charge, thanks to our gambling skills. I will say, that I wouldn't waste my money if I were paying.

After eating, we headed back up the mountain to try a couple of more casinos. We have discovered that it is well worth the time to get a players card in both Black Hawk and Central City. The comps have been great with free meals and money back to gamble. If you are looking for a little fun and you go up the mountain, take sometime to get a players card and be prepared to be treated like royalty. That is, if you are low life degenerate gamblers like Pam and I are and consider a free lunch as being a part of high society!

After calculating our losses and figuring that we might not have enough gas money to get back to Texas, we decided to call it a day and head back down the mountain and to reality. Besides, I had to get ready to go to the big Monday Night Football game that Pam had given me as a Christmas present.

When we got back to my parents house, Pam loaded up the girls to take them to the mall to spend down some of their Christmas money and I headed to the light rail to catch the train to the game. It was going to be a cold game and I felt like I was well prepared. On the way to the game, Pam sent me a picture of them wishing me a good time!

My partner for the game would be Tony, AKA Holmes. I have known Holmes since fifth grade when he first moved to Colorado. He wasn't in my class, but he had a mullet and thought he was pretty tough back in the day. In fact he thought he was so tough, one day he took on the entire fifth grade when he decided to steal a football from all the boys at recess. I instantly liked him. Anybody with guts and a cool mullet was good to have as a friend instead of a foe! Holmes met me at a place called Brooklyn's. We had a few drinks and some quick eats before the game. Mainly we went there to be warm as long as we could before the game started. 

We made the trek over to the stadium. With each step, I felt my lungs gasp for air and my muscles scream in pain. The stadium name of Mile High could be more accurate. We had to go over several ramps and climb many stairs to finally reach our destination of sitting on the thirty yard line...In the very last row! 

I was huffing, puffing and either preparing to pass out or die. Holmes, who is more acclimated to the high altitude than I am was laughing at how out of Colorado shape I am.  Luckily he had enough energy to buy me a beer to settle my nerves and get me prepared to cheer on the Broncos to another victory and sew up another playoff appearance. 

The game was awesome to see and be a part of. It did get a touch cold and it didn't help that Holmes liked to point out that the temperature on the scoreboard was only nine degrees. I wasn't really sure what the windchill factor was, but I do know that my beer turned into a slushy and I lost all feeling in my toes and feet. 

The game was great all the way up to the end. We were fortunate enough to get to see some overtime with the win! Since we had Ueker seats and were enjoying life at the top row, we had to wait for pretty much everyone else to leave the stadium in order for us to get out.

We headed back to the light rail where we said our goodbyes as we were heading in different directions. After a brief 45 minute wait in the freezing cold, I was finally able to board the packed train. A couple of younger men were standing next to me and they had way to much to drink. It got so bad that one of them had vomited on himself. It was pretty disgusting, and I was glad I was just far enough away from them that I didn't need to be near them.

After the long train ride home, I was happy to get in the car and blast the heat all the way back to  my parents house. When I got into bed, Pam told me I was still ice cold. I didn't care. I had an amazing gift, got to spend time with one of my best friends, and the Broncos won a spot in the playoffs!

Day 8:

The day started out extra early as it was time to head home. We had planned on staying an extra day, but Goliath had made a mess of things down south while another storm was threatening up north. We figured we had a small window to get home. 

We gave our hugs and sad kisses goodbye to load up and head south. The roads were great all through Colorado and New Mexico. In fact, we saw very little snow until we hit Amarillo, which still was not too bad. The roads didn't get rough until we hit Lubbock. They had done a good job clearing the highways and we had very little trouble until we hit Lamesa. Highway 349 between Lamesa and Midland was by far the worse road we faced. It was icy, slushy and the snow was all over the place. It is rather ironic to think that we had come from Colorado where the roads were clear to Midland where the roads were a mess.

Just a few miles outside of Midland, Pam's car hit a milestone of 100,000 miles. We asked Little D and AK to lead us in prayers of thanksgiving for a great time and getting us home safe. After many miles driven, lots of hours in the car, some toes that might need to come off due to frostbite, seeing Star Wars for the second time, Pam and I putting on our plumbing pants, and a great deal of family time and love...Pam declared the Desparrois Family Vacation on the Fly complete. As we rolled in, we realized our dogs were not pleased that we left them behind-- all in hopes that Kelly would have something to read for eight mornings while she enjoyed her coffee!

Desparrois Family Vacation on the fly Day 6

The day once again started out early again with a quick trip to the gym. The workout has gotten a little easier here in the Great White North, but honestly my lungs and heart are ready for the return to the low altitude of Midland.

After my workout, Uncle Denny and Cousin Hilde came over. Cousin Hilde was going to go shopping with the girls and Uncle Denny was going to stay and watch football with my dad and I. We enjoyed watching the Red Zone as both the Patriots and Panthers came up short. It would have been nice to see the Chiefs lose as well, but Johnny Manziel just can't live up to his former college days.

For Christmas, Pam had received the wonderful gift of money and a hotel stay up in Black Hawk. This town is known for their casinos. Although we have been there a few times, we have never stayed the night. I decided awhile back, a trip up the mountain for sometime away together and gambling is just what we needed. Pam, being the hardcore degenerate low staked gambler she is, was very excited to go!

Once Pam and the girls got home, we headed up to see if fortune and riches were in our future. We decided to check into to our room first. We had reservations for 4:00 and arrived slightly after that. We waited in line for about twenty minutes to find out that our room was not ready. We learned long ago through our many gambling trips it pays to ask for upgrades and comps. Since our room was not ready I asked if we could get some food comps. Sure enough they were happy to oblige. We hadn't even hit the tables and we already had a win under our belt!

We decided to walk around a bit and find a table to settle down to while we waited for our room. Pam and I found ourselves at the Lucky Lady Casino. We received our new players cards and for signing up they gave us five dollars each in cash and we also each received a twenty dollar voucher for dinner! We still had not hit a table and we were being treated like high rollers and not the low stake degenerate gamblers we are known to be! The only thing we could think of, was that word was out that we were in town and we needed to be taken care of!

Another interesting note is that Pam was carded at each casino we walked in, while I was not. Most people would be a little upset about this. Especially since Pam is much older than I am by a month and six days. Personally I was happy they thought and old man like myself could pick up a hot young woman such as Pam. Perhaps this was playing into all our free comps!

The Lady Luck proved to be anything but Lucky. Although than our free meal, we didn't win a dime. It was time to check into the hotel so we headed back. We got a massive room on the top floor with a great view. Again, they most have known who they were dealing with to provide such a nice place for us.

We decided to take the shuttle to Central City to check out their casinos. We had to wait outside for the shuttle while the temperature was a grand total of eight degrees. For most Coloradans this would be totally acceptable and a non issue. I guess I have been in Texas far too long, as Pam and I were never so happy to get on an old smelly bus!

Our luck changed at the Century Casino as we played Blackjack and visited our old friend, Pat Sajack and his Wheel of Fortune machine. We played until it was time to take the last bus back down the mountain. Pam decided that we needed to go back to the Lucky Lady and reclaim our loses from earlier in the night. We sat down and continued our losing ways and found ourselves with little of our buy in left. I will say that we did get offered another comp from the pit boss. He told us to come by in the morning and he would make sure we got breakfast!

It was late for Colorado time and we live by Texas time, so it was time for bed. We enjoyed the evening and the gambling rolling coaster it came with. With exhaustion settling in we went to bed to prepare for some gambling in the morning and the big game Monday night!

Desparrois Family Christmas on the Fly Day Five

Day five started out early with a purpose. The reason was to get to the gym early and work off some of my belly full of jelly from both the Christmas Eve feast and the Christmas day feast. Not surprisingly I was sluggish and slow and the high altitude of Denver continued to be an issue for my lungs and heart to deal with.

After my workout I had to run by the hardware store to buy a new shutoff valve for a toilet. It was discovered on Christmas morning that one of the toilets in the house was leaking. When I tried to turn the valve off, it completely broke off. Luckily it had stopped the leak, but it shut off the water for the toilet. Being Christmas day, there were no stores open to buy the necessary pieces to fix it.

I knew it wouldn't be a hard fix, so I opted to do it myself rather than have my parents try to find a plumber the day after Christmas, which also happened to be a Saturday. After I got back my dad wanted to wait for me to shut off the water so all the woman folk could shower and get ready for their excursion. Both girls got some loot from Christmas that was burning a hole in their pocket and were ready to shop.

I gave Little D and AK a big kiss and told them to get me something cool! My dad and I got ready as we had plans of our own. We called Uncle Jeffy and Uncle Tom and headed out to Chicago Mike's for a mans lunch of Chicago hot dogs, fries and onion rings. Uncle Jeffy brought Cousin Teagy and Uncle Tom allowed Cousin Garrett to tag along for food, fun and fellowship.

As reported before, Papa loves Chicago Mike's and it is his number one pick to go. In fact, he likes it so much, he has burned Grandma out on wanting to go eat there. He relies heavily on the men of his family to go with him. It has become somewhat of a tradition for us to go when I am in town! 

Everyone enjoyed their food with Uncle Jeffy winning the award once again as the most eaten with taking down two jumbo Chicago dogs, onion rings and most of Teagy's corn dog. Cousin Garrett has reported that his illness has left him and his appetite is starting to come back to life. Hopefully I will get to see him back on the saddle in the eating department before I leave, as watching a hungry Garrett eat can be quite the sight to see!

After lunch it was time to head back to Papa's house and get our best plumber pants on so we could properly have the right amount of crack showing while we got to work. I tried to take the valve off, but it immediately snapped the pipe in the ceiling below. I quickly ran down to the basement to find the drop down ceiling leaking through with left over water in the pipe. I had to take out a few destroyed ceiling tiles in order to locate the break in the pipe.

I knew instantly that we were in trouble and it was going to require some skills to fix. Papa doesn't get around very well and has given some of his tools away over the years. It turns out that he didn't have a saw to cut out the old pipe and replace the new pipe. This created another trip to the hardware store to buy a pipe cutter so I could cut the pipe and return again to get the proper pipe, elbows and another new valve because the other valve was the wrong one. To make a long story short...After seven trips to a variety of hardware stores to find the correct plumbing pieces, a stressed out Papa and Grandma the job finally got done with my handy assistant Pam and happiness to use the bathroom was restored!

It was nice to be able to help my parents out and get the water flowing again. The only bad part was that we had to cancel our plans to see Tony and Lori for the evening since we didn't have a clue when we would get done with the job. 

Pam and I were hungry, exhausted and in need of an ice cold beer. We headed out to a place where the girls could play video games and we could watch the Nebraska game. The girls had a great time playing old school video games. I will say, it amazes me that they can download the most complex games in the word to their Ipads and never ask one question, but, you get them in front of Mrs. Pacman and they ask a million question on how to play!

AK noticed they had a pool table and wanted to play. She has never played before but she was in good hands learning as Pam is a former pool shark and won many bets back in the day. It was fun watching Pam teach AK and Little D the finer points of the game. Little D liked pool, but I think she liked Centipede more.

It was a great way to end a rough and stressful day. All though we had to cancel our plans with Tony I will get to see him Monday night for the Broncos game. After a long day it was time to call it a night and get ready for more fun that day six would bring!

Desparrois Family Christmas on the Fly Day Four

Christmas morning started out what seemed to be extra early since we had a late night while attending midnight Mass and fulfilling Pam's lifelong ambition of eating at Waffle House. We had a grand total of about five hours of sleep when Little D barged into the room announcing that it was Christmas!

Pam and I limped out of bed, exhausted but also excited about what was to come. In my humble opinion, Christmas morning is the best reason in the world to have kids! I love watching my girls face light up with glee as they unwrap gifts with love and excitement in their eyes. There is something special about the holiday that puts everyone in a great mood.

The girls got busy tearing up paper around their gift, while Pam and I watched with happiness in our hearts. The girls got some loot for shopping with Grandma and all kinds of other girly items. Little D was psyched to get a back scratcher and AK could hardly believe that she received makeup and a new phone case. Hands down I received the greatest gift of all from my beautiful and equally talented wife, Pam! She surpassed last years surprise trip to Las Vegas with two tickets to the Broncos Monday night football game! I was absolutely floored. I have not been to a Broncos game since we lived in Colorado over seventeen years ago! Pam definitely won the award for best gift given this Christmas!

                                                                                                                                                                    Papa and Grandma enjoyed their gift exchange as much as the kids! Grandma walked away with a new purse and Papa received a new leather coat. He quickly declared it made him look like the Fonz. We all agreed with the new look he was sporting!

We sat around and relaxed and awaited the arrival of the rest of the family to come over for dinner. Everyone was excited to have yet another feast since we obviously did not enough enough the day before. 

This dinner was going to be a little more special since Pam won a major award this year and received a massive honey baked ham for her efforts. It turns out that a couple of weeks ago Pam got a letter in the mail announcing that she was in the top 100 customers of Jumburrito for the year. Pam's award for efforts of eating many breakfast burritos was a Christmas ham for all to dine on! Good work on this past year Pam, and good luck on this coming year. We are all cheering you on. I have no doubts with a little effort you can win it again for the coming year!

Needless to say the ham was amazing and very good to eat. Everyone went back for seconds including cousin Garrett whose tum-tum was starting to feel better, but not good enough to be declared the winner for the most eaten. That honor went to Aunt Susan who kept trucking on well past everyone else. In fact, when asked if I could take her plate to be cleaned she growled like a savage dog and snapped at my hand! Well done Aunt Susan, we are all proud of you for your first big win and surpassing Uncle Jeffy and Cousin Garrett which is no easy to feat to do!

After dinner the kids continued to run and around and enjoy each other since it is not very often they are all together. Jingle the elf continued his shenanigans from the night before and kept the kids entertained at a high level. Like all good things that night came to end with everyone saying their good bye.

We soon went to bed to try to catch up on sleep and prepare ourselves for a day of fun and a wild rumor that we would get to head out to see Tony and Lori the next day!

Desparrois Family Christmas on the Fly Day Three

Day three started out early again as Uncle Denny would be bringing cousin Hilde over to spend the day with us as he got the unfortunate nod of having to work on Christmas Eve. As always the girls were excited to see and play with Hilde. Luckily Pam and Aunt Susan were on their thinking game the night before and came up with a plan to go the rec center. The idea was to take the kids to the swimming pool to burn off the extra pregame Christmas Eve excitement that usually ends one of the younglings in trouble.

Susan and Pam's plan worked well as the kids had a great time at the pool wearing them down so they could make it into the evening without major incident or inter-family fighting! Auntie Katie was hosting the annual big Christmas Eve feast and present opening event. Grandma had been working hard all week in order to prepare the traditional Italian feast of lasagna and spaghetti for everyone to gorge on!

While waiting for Uncle Denny to arrive from work I decided to gather all the younglings onto the couch and start a protesting chant of "We want our presents!" My hope was that our chant would overthrow the long held tradition of eating first, cleaning everything up and then being able to open presents. I knew the kids would be on my side with getting our loot first. Grandma soon put a stop to our nonsense, and the kids had to find some new way to pass the time while dealing with their eager anticipation of what the night would bring!

Luckily, Jingle, our Elf on the Shelf, made the trip over to Auntie Katie's house and kept the little ones highly entertained as he moved about the house while they looked for him. Uncle Denny finally arrived and it was time for the feast to begin. Everyone over loaded their plates with carb ladened Italian goodies that would have made the mafia proud! We ate, ate, and ate just a little more to make sure we would get our fill until next year. Uncle Jeffy, hands down won prize for eating the most with Aunt Susan coming in a close second and Pam not far behind in third. The award for most disappointing amount eaten went to cousin Garrett as he is usually neck-and-neck with Uncle Jeffy. To be fair,the little fellow has been battling a tummy bug and just didn't have his normal appetite. Hopefully he will start feeling better soon to get back on his game!

After dinner we needed to make sure the entire kitchen was cleaned from top-to-bottom. Uncle Jeffy, as always, was trying to skip out of the cleaning so he could sleep off his food coma on the couch in peace. The eagerly excited younger generation were in no way going to allow the free jungle gym to lay peacefully and declared war on him. Cousin Teagy was sent in first with a flying cannon ball to the gut and Little D followed with a few well-placed roundhouse kicks that landed nicely on the new found home of Jeffy's lasagna. AK decided to join in on the fun with the threat of a nicely placed wedgie! After that it was like a swarm of bees on him making him wish that he helped cleanup and not taken on the award of "Most Eaten"!

Soon enough it was time to open the presents. One-by-one we shared, exchanged, laughed and embraced the joy of family and Christmas together! After all the presents were open and every ones heart was filled with love just as their bellies were still stuffed with sauce, cheese and pasta it was time to wind down the evening!

Each branch of the Desparrois' said goodnight so they could go off and prepare for Christmas in their own homes. We returned to Papa and Grandma's house with the idea of going to midnight Mass. At first, both Papa and Grandma were excited about going. As the time got closer, Papa got more tired and realized that he was going to have to tap out in order to get some rest. Grandma decide it was a good idea and followed Papa to bed.

The Mass was beautiful to attend. After we got done with church it was decided that we would fulfill one of Pam's bucket list items of going to eat at the famous world renowned Waffle House. For years Pam has had the dream of eating at a Waffle House. Some people want to visit the pyramids, some want to to see the northern lights and some have bigger ambitions such as climbing Mount Everest. But not my wonderful wife...her goal was to eat at a Waffle House! Now, please understand if the mother who had to carry around two kids in her stomach for nine months each, go through intense labor pains for hours on end, and squeeze them out while I sat back and watched, wanted Waffle House at one o'clock in the morning on Christmas Day, then by god that's what my beautiful blushing bride of sixteen years was going to get!!!

Waffle House did not disappoint as we had an amazing waitress that was fun and very excited about her job getting to work with others. It's not very often that you come across people who want to go out of their way to make you life better. Our server, Arlington did just that. She was a great person to come in contact with on an early Christmas morning! On a scale of one-to-five waffles, Pam gave her life long dream a rare and uncommon five waffles eaten with a little syrup dripping down her face!

We decided to call it a night as we realized that it was now three o'clock in the morning in Texas. With exhuastion soon setting in we made in home just in time to beat good old Santa Claus! We settled down for a nice winter nap to dream of sugar plums dancing in our heads and other crazy antics that Christmas would bring with the family!