The Big Bang: Xmas time

G'day possums!

Another great thing about having kids is that their excitement and enthusiasm is infectious!
Of course they love Christmas time and the whole build up to it, all the stories about Santa, the pressies magically appearing under the tree. Colourful lights , lots of food they don't usually get to eat much of, advent calendars with special treats each day..... great fun. I'm not a huge Christmas fan usually, but with kids its taken on a whole new dimension and you cant help being sucked into the magic!

So the car was packed - yet another logistical challenge! Its amazing how much crap you can squeeze and shove into a Ford Territory! I am convinced we don't need half of it , or more! But Annika disagrees! haha

We were heading down to 'The Farm' for Christmas. The in-laws , Geoff and Gail , kindly offered to take us in for a few days. No arguments from me! The kids love it down there and Annika gets a bit of a break as everyone chips in , especially Geoff who is always on hand to get the ride on mower or tractor up and running!

Everything was in place for a great few days down south at Montacute Farm.... ( soon to be renamed Montapuke Farm! ) haha
What happened next was ....well...just a bit messy and inconvenient to say the least!
Alex and Abby both started throwing up in the car , about an hour into the trip. Both strapped into their car seats, both vomiting everywhere. It didn't take long for the stench to fill the cabin and so I pulled over as soon as I could.
What a mess! Wow, they really gave it the full beans. It was already all over them both , all over the seats and basically the whole of the back of the car was a write off! Poor kids, poor car, poor us!

It took a bit f time to completely strip the car seats and get as much of the gunk off as we could - with baby wipes! haha

The journey usually takes 3.5 hours ....7 hours later we arrived. We had to make a few more stops along the way , cleaning as we went.

We knew at this point that their was an air of inevitability about this bug spreading through the rest if us like wildfire. It was just a matter of time!! It was the 23rd December. Will this be the Christmas from hell??!!

Well, in a nutshell - yes! haha
One by one , like dominoes, we were consumed by this particularly aggressive bug.
Alex was hit the hardest. The poor fella wasn't even well enough to open his pressies on Xmas day. He was struggling to keep water down even! We even went to the local hospitals to check whether he needed some IV fluids but being a country hospital they just gave him an icy pole instead! haha

Abby seemed to recover after 2 days or so and was well enough to enjoy the farm , which was great! Zoe managed to evade the bug - tough nut!

Urghh - poor Alex - power nap!

Makeshift day bed in trailer.

Attended to by the sisters

Next to go was me. You know when things are about to get messy - its that churning and gurgling deep within and the sudden and fluctuating levels of nausea. Unusual for me to get sick but this one got me! Not to go into much more detail but I was occupying a specific room quite a lot over the following 3 or 4 days! haha

Next was Annika....urghhhh! Not nice.

What we really felt bad about was that we invited our Canadian buddies down. They had been due to fly back to Canada for Xmas but unfortunately their eldest daughter had an accident and badly damaged her pinky finger tip in a door! Ouch!
So they had to cancel their trip so Calla could get operated on.
And now they had walked into a bubbling cauldron of bacteria!

They didn't get sick until they got home after Xmas - a delayed reaction , but we felt terrible about it it nonetheless!

The same with Gail and Geoff - they didn't get sick until about a week after us! Weird.

Calla and Abby

Dave and Calla

Tractor Trailer combo action!

Anyway - it wasn't all shit and vomit! haha
There were some really nice moments during the 5 days as well. Alex perked up towards the end , enough to get a few rides on the tractor and the ride on. Enough time to go and pick fruit and vegetables, check the windmill was working ok, and all the other stuff he is obsessed with down there! haha

He has huge potential as a farmer I think! Abby too, but she is like Geoff's shadow at the farm - wont let him out of her sight - poor Geoff! I'm sure he loves it really.....maybe..haha