12 Days of Christmas - Part 2:Virginia

Our Virginia trip began after Christmas since Jared was on call for the holiday. Thankfully, my family was waiting until we arrived on the 27th for our gift exchange so I wouldn't miss Christmas! Instead of Mom only planning one event, she had Christmas dinner on the 25th as well so family members that had work during the week would still be able to celebrate. The plans were going well... that was until the early morning hours of the 26th when 4 members of the family got sick with what we thought at the time was food poisoning. I get a text from my sister describing how ill so many people were. Possibly the first time I was glad not to be home.

So this changed our trip completely. We had plane tickets this year, flying from Cleveland to BWI and we took our first train ride together to Union Station and I wore a silly engineer hat...

Instead of arriving to presents wrapped, brunch and celebration, everyone was drained and still not feeling well. Bummer. And they weren't sure which food made them sick. Was it the ham? Whatever it was, we couldn't trust one thing to eat in the house. UGH!! So we just hung out and caught up a bit with the family and had a late dinner out just the two of us at BoneFish using a fantabulous gift card from my in-laws.

The next day we heard of more people being sick. Grandma and Uncle Connie the day we arrived and on Wednesday Uncle Robert. Sickness was rolling through the family... our "Christmas" moved to Thursday the 29th, and we hoped that would work out and not to catch what was obviously not food poisoning.

So Wednesday we stayed out of the house and caught up with some friends. After a always too short visit with the Milans for lunch we did some shopping at Tysons. I love that mall! And the sales were great!  We topped of the night with happy hour with Laura, and dinner with Daniel & Lauren.

Thursday it was finally Christmas!

And I got photos of everyone except Great Grandma Connie! That stubborn lady just has to be in the right mood to snap her picture. So annoying but what can you do? She is 94!

On Friday we had part 2 of our Virginia Christmas. This time with Jared's sister's family. That is after I went a little crazy and changed my hair color to red... not so sure I like it.

I just love seeing these kiddos open presents. Makes me so excited every time. We were supposed to meet up with them again the next morning for a movie date. That is until I woke up at 5am sick. I had caught the bug. Whatever was lingering around the house finally caught up with me and I was sick the whole day....  New Year's Eve.

Luckily by around 11pm I was feeling much better. I actually could get up and shower. I made it upstairs just in time for the ball drop and to visit with the family while they enjoyed their Chinese food and champagne.

And just like that, it was time to leave. It was a new year, and we were leaving Virginia in what seemed like such a fast trip with not enough time to do what I wanted. With entirely too much icky sickness all around.