We had a lovely dinner with my parents last night, followed by some Christmas Eve gift opening. The twins had a great time, and good cheer was all around. We wrapped up the evening with a couple of cut-throat games of Uno. We got the twins to bed just shy of ten o'clock.

They were both up at four thirty. To their credit, they tried valiantly to go back to sleep for about twenty minutes, before giving up and asking if they could open gifts. So at ten to five, we ripped into the presents! Everyone got stuff they had asked for, plus a few nice surprises to boot. I developed a pounding headache, so went back to bed for a bit. Now we're all just puttering around: Tyler's playing a GameBoy game; Tayler is building a house from the cardboard scraps; and Carina is fooling around with her new laptop. Tayler has asked for some creative consultation in her house building efforts, so it's time for me to get off this computer!

Happy Holidays everyone!

We received from friends a bottle of wine from Graceland Cellars, with a picture of the King singing his heart out. Tayler studied this bottle for some time. The following exchange took place:

Tayler: Why is Elvis all sweaty?
Skippy: He's singing, and standing in the hot lights. It's really exhausting to perform like that.
Tayler: Elvis died from taking drugs.
Skippy: Yes, I know.
Tayler: He died from taking illegal drugs.
Skippy: Yes, I know.
< enter Tyler >
Tyler: Who died?
Skippy: Elvis Presley.
Tyler: How did he die?
Skippy: He died from taking illegal drugs.
Tyler: <excited >Oooh! That's how Elvis died!
Skippy: <exhausted >Yes, Elvis! Elvis Presley is exactly who we're talking about!
Tyler: Oh.

Carina's parents purchased a Netflix subscription for us! Thank you!

My queue is already over thirty items, two dozen of which are Babylon 5. I can't wait to watch the series from start to finish again! ;)

We were awoken last night by the unmistakable sound of someone painting the inside of the toilet bowl with their dinner. Carina rose to deal with Tayler, who vomitted several times. I listened sleepily as new sheets were dug out and applied to the bottom bunk, which were soiled before Tayler could make it to the bathroom. When Carina returned to bed, I dozed off quickly.

Around 3 AM I was awoken again, this time to hear Tayler calling out "Dad, Tyler's puking!" So I got up to deal with it. Tyler's always been a champ about the actual being sick part of being sick (it's the boring staying home from school that she struggles with). Bleary eyed, and not thinking straight, I decided to eschew new sheets for the much easier to deal with sleeping bag, which I placed on the top bunk. Tyler started crying that puke was in her hair. Though I could find no evidence that this was true, I helped her rinse her head out in the sink, dried her hair, and placed her back in bed.

I thought perhaps it might be a touch of food poisoning. Both girls had the same meal at the Japanese restaurant last night, while Carina and I only nibbled a little bit on their dishes. Nonetheless, they were kept home from school today. Carina took the first shift while I went to work, and I relieved her at lunch time. Despite their protests, I made them take a long nap (which surprisingly they did take!), and then we all puttered around the house for the remainder of the afternoon.

Carina came home feeling woozy, and went straight to bed. It looks like the flu has hit our house full force. My own symptoms are, for the moment, a sore throat and slight headache. I don't expect to last long with three sick people breathing around me.

The ladies are all asleep, and I'm left alone, the only sound that of the cats rummaging about.

Carina took Tyler shopping the other night. I inferred from her comments that they were going grocery shopping. When they returned, Tyler burst into the house and exclaimed "Come help with this Christmas present!" I assumed she was being silly, and I dutifully went out to help unload the groceries.

As I stepped outside, though, I saw Carina unloading a home theater system from the trunk! We'd been discussing such an item as a shared gift to one another, but I was quite surprised to see that she had splurged for it. We both laughed as I told her what Tyler had said. "She was supposed to get you to go into the kitchen!" Carina giggled.

Last night I purchased stands for the satellite speakers, and a 100' spool of speaker wire (it's amazing how quickly one can use one hundred feet of speaker wire!), and got the whole thing configured. Neither Carina nor I are audiophiles, so watching Lord of the Rings with surround sound and booming bass was a real treat for us! I'm really looking forward to watching some of my favorite DVDs to enjoy the audio experience anew.

This morning the kids are off from school, and I'm home with them. Tayler asked me to connect our Nintendo GameCube to the new system, to which I readily agreed. After a few moments of swapping cables, I fired it up and watched Tayler's face light up with joy as the sound quality improved remarkably. She's been playing Animal Crossing for a few minutes now, and she's still giggling every time some deep sound causes the bass to rumble in the room. As an added bonus, the home theater system should hopefully minimize the number of remotes our family needs to juggle, which will certainly help when grandmas and grandpas watch the twins -- A/V-fu is not a strong suit of either set of grandparents!

After lunch we're off to go roller skating!