So, Friday, the 22nd of November, we made the 8 hour trip up north to visit my family. Well...it should have been eight hours anyways. It ended up being nearly thirteen thanks to traffic in San Diego and Los Angeles. Gotta love southern California! It's always fun to be at a complete stand still on the freeway.

So, early Saturday morning (about three in the morning) we got to my mom's house. Thankfully, the kids slept most of the way. We had some interesting experiences along the way, but we managed to arrive safe and sound. Saturday evening I drove down to the Bay Area and had fun with a friend. We went out to eat, then went to see the movie, Eragon. The movie was a bit slow, but it was cute. I had a lot of fun. Right before the movie, I got a phone call from Drake saying that Sera was crying uncontrollably no matter what he did, so could I please come home as soon as possible. I felt bad and contemplated going home without watching the movie, but decided that he could play dad for a little while longer. I've dealt with unconsolable babies...why couldn't he? I still feel guilty for choosing to stay out and have fun while he was home dealing with a screaming baby, but it is so seldom that I get to go out that I decided they could live without me for another two hours. (Well, four if you count the two hour drive home) I called him when I left the bay area and told him I was on my way home. Less than an hour later, he called me back, all pissed off, wondering why I wasn't home yet. Ummm...perhaps it is because it's a two hour drive and I had started less than an hour before?

So, anyways, I get home, and sure enough...Sera is just pitching an absolute fit, refusing to sleep, refusing to eat, refusing to do anything. She was burning up. Poor baby was sick :( So, I gave her some Tylenol, the fever went down, and she was able to sleep for about twenty minutes at a time. For the next three nights I was up with her, trying to calm her down, walking around with her, singing to her, just holding her, etc., as she screamed and screamed and screamed. :( She's finally starting to feel a bit better and has only been waking up once or twice the past few nights. However, she's still miserable during the day. I feel bad because she's normally such a good, happy baby and my family just isn't seeing that. lol

We've been looking at a few housing developments while we're up here. There are some really nice homes being built in the Lincoln area that we would be very lucky to be able to purchase and be able to live in. The problem is, Drake doesn't have a job up here, so we really can't buy anything. The houses take about six months to build, which means we would have to buy now to move in June, which is the projected time frame for us planning on moving up here. But, without a job in place, it would be awfully risky to buy a place and just assume that he'll find work up here within the next six months. Ugh, I hate this. It doesn't help that he hasn't even started looking for work. He keeps saying that he needs to update his resume a bit before he can apply for new jobs, but he's not even working on it. He says he dislikes the way things are going with his current job and that he wants to move closer to my family, but his actions say otherwise. Whenever I bring up the fact that he needs to start working on his resume, he says he knows and that he will, but he never does. I know I can't bring it up that often because if I do he'll just start getting angry and tell me that I'm nagging and then we'll end up in a huge fight about it with him all pissed off and yelling and me crying, and well...I'm sick of fighting.

We got in a rather large fight the other day about something that has really been bothering me a lot lately. He actually initiated the conversation about it, so I thought we could have a civilized conversation about it, but no such luck. It just ended up with him pissed off at me, me crying and me feeling like I'm expected to be the "good little wife" who never makes waves, never questions his actions, just accepts everything he wants and doing whatever he says. I don't want to go into things too much because I don't like painting him as the bad guy because no matter what, this is the life I chose...this is the life I choose. Things don't have to be the way they are...I just allow them to be, so I really have no room to complain. I just wish things were different, but the more I try to change things, the worse our relationship gets, so I just go right back to, "Okay honey, you're right. I'm sorry. I'll do whatever you say. You're right, I shouldn't question you," and so on and so forth just to avoid the fighting.

Anyways, I'm having a good time spending time with my family, being able to talk to my mom and my sister, having the kids spend time with their cousins, etc. The kids are having an absolute blast having these built in kids that they get along with so well. I miss my family so much. I hate being so far away from them. The only thing I don't like about this visit is that I feel like such an outsider. I feel like I'm just a guest, visiting, rather than part of the family. I guess, in a way, I am. I only see them for a few days a year. They see their friends more often than they see me. I hate that.

The kids had a blast at Christmas. They got a ton of gifts and they're having a great time playing video games and playing with their new toys. Mario Party 7 seems to be their favorite gift as a whole. Emma got a skateboard and a bunch of gear from my mom. She's absolutely in love! She's been outside a lot trying to learn how to skateboard. Caitlin is extremely jealous. lol They all got some good stuff and it was fun spending Christmas morning with our family.

Tomorrow night we're celebrating new years at my sister's new home. We're all going over there for dinner, then staying until midnight. The older kids will be spending the night there. We're supposed to drive home on Monday, but I just don't think I'll be up for the drive after being up all night for New Years, so I think we're going to drive home Tuesday morning...then it's back to the grind and real life.

Sigh...I'm going to miss this. No matter how much Drake says he plans on finding a new job and us moving up here over the summer, I've heard that numerous years passed. I'm trying not to get my hopes up because it never happens.