Our holiday and Christmas

Wow we are home, relief mixed with tiredness and lots of good memories! We headed off to the beach only to come across flooding fords, stuck campervans and an overnight stay in a motel. So the next day we again headed to PJ and arrived with a lot of unpacking to do in the pouring rain with grumpy kids and fed up parents! We settled into our really awesome area sharing a site with T and T and not far from the family.

The children were all so excited and we had so many adventures planned each day for 'club kids' and even the adults got involved with activities such as tug of war, races, treasure hunts in the sand, gingerbread house making and water fun. We decorated the Christmas tree for the caravan and it looked fantastic. Wow every day we were all so busy and a few days into our holiday I was exhausted, dehydrated and stressed from all the lead up that I just crashed and for a day I slept and felt like crap.

However the happy days continued with many more activities and very very busy days leaving me exhausted at the end of the day and very ready for an early night.

We had friends come and go and over that time it was great fun but very busy and a bit of hard work with so many people, dishes, children around and trying to keep the energy levels up. My family arrived Christmas day and boxing day and this was met with relief and joy with me being able to see them and have family around me.

Christmas day was a hard one with the lead up to feeling like I had to really make an effort for this one to be special to the children and yet feeling a bit lost and empty without baby Grace. B and I had everything ready Christmas Eve and then early Christmas morning there was delight as the children opened presents and discovered the chocolate Santa trail that was left behind and disappointment that the reindeer forgot to drink their water....It was great to be around everyone and the children had a great day. We had a lovely meal at the end of the day and this was great. I went for a walk in the morning for some 'me and Grace' time and missed my family so much. I bawled and got lots of tears out hiding down in the sand dunes and then headed back to camp pretending I was happy again with a smile plastered on my face. As much as this day was great, it also for me lacked some 'magic' that I usually associate with Christmas.

So getting past this day was met with days filled with sun, sand, swimming, walks, adventures, some melt downs from kids, lots of the time the whole family being together and not much relaxing! I enjoyed most of the holiday and time away. I found some moments hard when I just wanted some time out and this could not happen easily and this was difficult. I found it hard to spend time with just my family. I found that New Years was a great night and I had so much fun and yet when we did the countdown I was overwhelmed with emotions and I guess the release of the year that I never want to experience again.

I had many talks about Grace and from some people I least expected. I found that her name was mentioned so many days and I felt lucky to be around people with compassion, understanding and the strength to talk to me about Grace. I had tears through most of these talks but felt so lucky to be able to talk about Grace and have her mentioned as a part of our lives. I talked with A and M about their baby and this was a good chance to catch up with them face to face.

We released a lantern with B's side of the family and friends and this was intended for Grace originally however I wanted to include A and family into this to symbolize the significance of their baby also. I mentioned 'P's baby and all the babies in heaven. There was a small incident of misunderstanding that occurred before releasing the lantern but I moved on from this and reminded myself what I was there to do. The children all had fireworks after this and it was lovely.

There were lots of great moments at P J and lots of fun times with lots of happy kids! Every time someone left I got a bit teary eyed.

So now it is home to unpacking and getting on top of the jungle in the garden.

Onto a new year with hope for a good one!!!!