Christmas with my Dad and Judy

Sunday morning my dad and Judy came over to Justin's, so we could celebrate Christmas with them. It is a tradition in Milwaukee to have hot ham and rolls on Sunday morning for breakfast/lunch. I remember from a young age on stopping to get ham and rolls after church every Sunday. The Italian deli's, bakery's and mom and pop stores sell it. The ham is thinly sliced and warmed in pineapple juice and the rolls are freshly baked with a hard outside and soft in the inside.

So for breakfast Sunday morning, my dad brought ham and rolls. Eric doesn't understand this crazy tradition, especially since he isn't a fan of ham. So, he just eats the rolls with butter. Chase was happy to see Grandma and Grandpa. Anthony hasn't seen my dad enough to know that it is Grandpa, and so he hasn't really warmed up to him yet. He did like the fact that he got a Go Diego Go boat from them though!

We stayed at my brother's until 11am and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa Gruenwald's. My dad went over there too. I called Grandma to tell her we were coming. She said, "This isn't the best time, the Packer game is on." I only get to see my dad's parents three or four times a year! I didn't take it to heart, and we still showed up. Luckily the Packer's were having their worst game to date against the Bears, so she didn't miss a lot!

We stayed almost two hours. Both of my grandparents are not in good health. Last Christmas Grandma told me it would be her last Christmas. Well, we made it one more year! So, it is hard to leave, knowing it could be the last time I see them alive.

We got on the road at 1:30pm. We were ten miles outside of Milwaukee and the snow hit, along with the blowing winds and ice. It normally takes an hour to get to Madison. It took us over two hours. We kept passing car after car in the ditch. We kept forging on. Eric had to work Christmas Eve, and he was bound and determined to be there. After four hours of being in the car, and we were still in Wisconsin, we found a Wal-Mart. It was dark and the boys were trying to be good travellers, so we gave in and bought new DVD players for the car. The last one's only lasted six months. So we decided I would go back to entertaining the kids. Well, I was exhausted come Sunday afternoon, I had a headache and our slow progress towards home was just too much. My grandparents had given the boys money for Christmas. It was going to be put in their savings account, bu alas we used it to buy them traveling entertainment! My Grandma and Grandpa Gruenwald had given the boys $10 each, so Anthony bought a DVD with six cartoons on it and Chase bought a Spiderman watch. We then got back on the road. At the five hour mark we hit the Iowa border. The roads got a little better in Iowa, but it still took us another four hours to get home. So what is normally 5 1/2 to 6 hour trip was a 9 1/2 hour trip.