so much to write...so little time

alone with three kids it's hard to get time to update everyone...here goes... We had a great t'giving dinner with the whole Mickelson clan including my grandma and her husband. The kids were SPOILED with attention over the weekend and hated saying goodbye to someone every day. Yesterday we took Jeff to the airport and the kids tearfully said goodbye for three weeks. Heather has been very sad--whenever she is tired or hungry it's "I miss daddy." which she started almost immediately upon getting into the car at the airport. Charlie also mournfully states his sadness that dad is not going to be here for a few weeks...We did an art museum in Columbus (OH) that my paretns had been to and had a nice kids activity area as well as the play place at polaris before dinner and then the hotel (with my parents). My parents left this morning and the single mom and three kids drove up to Jeff's mom's to visit until Monday or Tuesday.

The kids had a few funny quotes along the way...We saw santa at the mall and they were all in awe. When Charlie saw him he said, "I can not believe it it's the real santa claus!!" It was cute in an awestruck 3 year old way. They did give him high fives (even Cameron) and returned for Heather to give him a hug. The stammered out what they wanted for Christmas (Cars "stuff" and barbies--what?!) and excitedly picked a piece of candy from the box. In the toy store heather proclaimed, "i know, i know mom, Santa can't bring me everything that I want."

This morning as we were getting ready to leave the hotel I asked heather to put the stuff in the cooler while I did some clothes packing and her cartoon came back on she said, "it's OK mom. I can help. I don't need to watch cartoons all day!" WHAT---they are currently watching toy story 2 :-)

Finally Heather was my "helper" with Cameron in the back seat while Charlie was my helper in the middle seat. After Cameron (who had slept for an hour or so) cried lightly for about 3 minutes heather announced, "this is hard work."

We heard from Jeff today. WEather in the Azores: 65 sunny, no breeze...PERFECT!! He said that I would love it. He posted a few pictures of possible houses on Facebook for those of you who are his "friend". The outside views are from our two possible "backyards". Guess which one I prefer!? (MS friends I still REALLY miss you--even with the cool backyard!)