And the children were nestled all snug in their...carseats

This would be us on Christmas Eve. Yes, the evening of Eve...driving home from Santa Barbara. We should've been cozy in our jammies, sitting by the fireplace, sipping homemade egg nog. However, an unfortunate turn of events dashed all of our holiday hopes and dreams...

We were supposed to spend two fun filled weeks in beautiful, sunny Santa Barbara, but shortly after arriving Benson appeared to be having some sort of allergy--was it something he ate? was there an unusually high pollen count? No, as it turns out, Benson is pretty severely allergic to pets--it just so happens that Ryan's parents have 2 cats and a dog. We didn't figure it out until it had been about 24 hours and Benson had a bright red rash covering his face, bloodshot and slightly puffy eyes, a runny nose, and a cough! So, we tried to remedy the situation by first giving Benson a hefty dose of Benadryl and removing him from the house for the day, and then cleaning the house and keeping the pets contained...just hours after returning to Ryan's parents' house he broke out all over again. So, we had no choice--I called my friend Sarah and asked if we could stay at her parents' house for the night (Sarah calls it "the compound", we assumed they would have room for us). Benson cleared up again. We decided that we couldn't go back to my in-laws house obviously, so we got a hotel room.

Saturday before Christmas we checked into the stately Sandpiper Inn--no, really it wasn't stately...it was a handicapped room, therefore there was no division between the shower and the rest of the bathroom, the sheets were like sandpaper, and the cable didn't even work. Oh, and it smelled like pee. Kayla nicknamed it the "Happiness Hotel" (for those of you who haven't seen the Great Muppet Caper, that's what they call the local dirty hostile). We stayed one night and decided to call it quits as Benson broke out into hives even in the presence of Ryan's parents and little brother as their clothes were covered in pet dander, and Kayla would cry everytime we had to return and say "But I don't like this house". So alas, Christmas Eve morning we took Benson to the Urgent Care clinic to get his bark-like cough checked out, we opened all of our presents in the Happiness Hotel, packed up the Westy and headed home.

Next morning, back in San Jose, Ryan went surfing...Christmas morning, not another soul in the water...apparently it was "epic" and he said he got "tubed". The kids and I stayed home, did laundry, just another day in paradise as they say. Now Benson has developed croup as a result of the allergic reaction--poor guy can't get a break. Merry Christmas Young family!