Hurry up - it's time to go!

Didjall have a good Christmas? We had a pretty fun one.

I started getting sick on Christmas Eve and I felt pretty crappy on Christmas Day, but it was still pretty awesome.

This is a picture of my siblings and I. By order of age it's me, Jay (gray sweater), AD (green shirt), Nic (beard-o), Mac (brown tee), and Matthew (white and red LS tee). First off: yes, Nic is my LITTLE brother.

Anyway, we did presents in the morning at my Moms house with all the kids, plus G and Audrey, Justin (AD's BF), Devan (Jay's BF), and my Grandma - 11 people in all. At our house we open one gift at a time so everyone gets to see what you got and so you can thank the person who gave it to you right away. It's really fun, but opening presents takes forever.\

You may or may not know that my family is effing crazy. Fun crazy, but still crazy. Somehow we started this thing where you open your eyes as wide as you can, open your mouth into a huge "O", tilt your head slightly to the side, turn to someone else in the room - but you have to start by facing about 90-degrees away from the person, then slowly turn to face them. The point is to make an over-exaggerated surprised/shocked face and not laugh. It's hard! Gina latched onto it and I caught her practicing in the car on the way to Mom's house. My brother is really good at the face, but it's so funny that you always crack up when he does it and then HE cracks up.

We also over-use the slow clap - especially on Christmas. If someone opens a really awesome gift, one of us starts the slow clap and it builds into a cacophony of cheers. Sometimes it lasts a good 3 or 4 minutes. I'm cereal. We are nutjobs.

The Sunday before Christmas we did our celebration at my Dad's house. That wasn't quite as crazy, but still pretty funny. At one point we were re-living all the injuries we sustained as kids - it started when Matthew opened one of those Wave Skateboards (see below) and was going to ride it. He wasn't wearing any shoes (they were just outside the door) and that led to re-living the time Nic tried to skateboard down our steep driveway with each foot on a different board: picture skiing on skateboards. In bare feet. One board slipped out and his big toe got totally dislocated and was sticking out of the bottom of his foot. AD and Jay were outside with him and AD came running in saying "Dad! Dad! Nic's toe broke off his foot!" My Dad took Nic to the ER and his toe is now fine. But that story led to other injury stories, and it was odd to notice that almost every instance happened either while we were leaving the house to go somewhere, or bed time. Here are some highlights:

1. AD, at about 3 or 4 (I think): We were going to a family friend's house to be babysat while my parents went to a meeting or something. Since it was dinner time, my Mom made a huge crock pot full of soup to take with us. The soup was SUPER hot and on the floor of the back seat. While trying to climb into her car seat, AD slipped and plopped her foot right into the boiling soup. It filled her shoe and soaked her sock, and she got 2nd degree burns and almost had ot have some skin grafts.
2. Me, the summer between 7th and 8th grade: It was 6 or 7 days after I fell off the monkey bars and knocked myself out, had a seizure and a ride in an ambulance, and got a concussion. We were heading to swimming class and I was the first one outside, but the car was still locked. We had an AWESOME climbing tree next to the driveway and we had an awesome rope swing made from some rope my Dad got off a ship at the Terminal where he worked. Little did I know, but my neighbor Tyson had tried to move the rope to a better location, but could only get part of the knot untied, so he left it. I grabbed the rope and did one of those things where you run in a half circle and swing way out sideways. Just as my Mom came out with the rest of the kids, the knot let go and I fell directly onto the side of my head. I thought I was okay, but I barfed twice at swim class and couldn't get in the pool, so we went to the ER and I had another concussion on top of the one I got a week before.
3. Jay, around 10 or 11 (I think): The family was heading out the door to come see me perform in the Vancouver Dance Theater's production of The Nutcracker (one of the 11 years I was in it). I was already there and the Fam was just heading out the door. Jay, AD, and Nic had just seen Mary Poppins again, and Jay wanted to do what we all now refer to as the Chim Chimminy Dance - it's when the Mom is dancing at the beginning of the movie: two people lock arms and another person does a "skin-the-cat" over their arms. Jay had AD and Nic set up so she could flip over them (right as my Dad is yelling "Come on, it's time to leave"). Since Nic and AD were quite young, they dropped Jay and she dislocated her shoulder. That was a trip to the ER......
4. Also Jay, I'm not sure what age: Jay had come out to the living room to kiss Dad goodnight. On the way back to her room, she stopped to dance on our parquet floor entry way. She slipped, and broke her foot. No joke.
5. Nic, probably around 9: We were getting in the car to go somewhere, and Nic decided to climb up the Climbing Tree. There were two trucks that crossed each other and Nic was climbing right there. Someone (me?) was hanging from a branch off one of those two trunks, and right when Nic put his knee in the joint, whoever was on the branch let go. That pinched Nic's knee in the joint of the two trees and he got stuck. Mom came out and we tried lubing his knee with dish soap, Crisco, and butter but nothing worked. We ended up having to call the fire department who used three guys and two corwbars to get him out.

Those are just a few examples, but there are tons of them. The two youngest (Mac is 12 and Matty is 9) don't seem to get hurt as much as the older bunch did - I can't help but wonder if my parents know better now and don't let the little boys get into situations that have to potential for danger. Then again, who expects to break their foot by dancing for a second before bed? Maybe the boys are just a little smarter than we were.....

In any case, parties at my Mom's house are always a riot. If you ever get the chance to join us (and pretty much everyone is invited for every celebration) try to make it: you'll fit right in.

(this is the WaveBoard Matty got: cool, hua?)