Boxing day...

(December 26th)

Traditionally, Boxing day has been my favourite day of the Christmas season, when we lived at the cottage it was an open house day, friends and family would come round, there would be much drinking, eating, chatting, games and silliness. This year was a much quieter affair. It started with my mom doing a taxi run to take middle brother Daniel to the airport - he was flying out to Spain to meet his ex and then onto the Dominican Republic with her, that is where she is from. They have a very on-off relationship so heaven knows what it is right now! Then it was onto Bury to pick up my other brothers kids and bring them back for a few days. 

The kids had more presents to open, it was like Christmas mark II, we had kept some of Ebi-kuns presents so that he would have some to open too. Later in the day my step brother and his family arrived so it was pretty much a full house. Ebi-kun's older cousin D doesn't handle crowds well, it seems to stress him out and he gets upset and loud, Ebi-kun wasn't really sure what to make of it all. Once everyone had left and the little ones were in bed D calmed down, he spent a age playing quietly with his lego, like a different child.

 M got lots of Peppa Pig toys, I can't see the attraction myself! It was good for Ebi-kun to have time with his cousins, before now it has only ever been a couple of hours here and there, we do get to see them on ichat but it is not the same as actually playing with them.

 The 27th we played some games indoors then took the kids to the Wacky Warehouse so that they could blow off some steam, it was a good choice, it wasn't busy and the kids wore themselves out. Tom and I made it our mission to get a photo of all three of them together in the balls.... we failed! This is the best shot I got and M had run off.

 I think actually Tom was enjoying it in there more than the kids! The drive over to the Wacky Warehouse is only about 10 minutes but Daddy-ebi was driving - the first time to use my moms car, with 3 kids in the back, snowy roads and 7 roundabouts to contend with, each way (we don't really have roundabouts in Japan). The kids behaved themselves in the car and we made it there and back with only one near miss and Daddy-ebi had a large, well deserved beer as soon as he got back :o)