Let's make a short story longer.....

We are supposed to be on the 6am flight out of Dayton, OH for Dallas tomorrow morning. We booked this flight back in October when I was notified that my frequent flyer miles were set to expire in two days. So we spent a few hours online and discovered the only place we could go that made any sense was Dallas, TX. Matt has never been to Texas, and we thought anywhere would be warmer than Fort Wayne in December. We got a nice hotel, Le Meridian, through Priceline and we had a reservation for a car. At the time, we thought it would be a fun getaway for the three of us.
As the time got closer, and as we realized we were running out of money due to the Christmas spending, and other various car/house expenses and as we discovered we were not going to get quite the tax return back for the adoption we thought we would, we become more stressed then excited. We knew we were going to be stuck in our hotel room by 8pm every night and twice a day for naps. And without enough money to do fun things like the zoo or eat at good restaurants. On top of that, we didn't want to check bags so the three of us packed carry ons, and we were going to check a stroller and a car seat. Trying to pack for the three of us for a week in three tiny suitcases is tough and stressful. Yes, we actually got our bags packed and everything!
This morning we started talking about finances and looked up the hotel refund policy on priceline. Their charges are non-negotiable, non-refundable and non-transferable. We figured we might as well ask and if the Lord wanted to give us our hotel money we wouldn't go. Priceline right away gave us our money back! And I called the airlines and got our FF miles back! We were both disappointed about not going on vacation, but the overwhelming feeling we both felt was relief. Now Matt can work on his Master's, I can paint, Hannah can recover from a week of holiday partying and we don't have to worry about eating on $10 a day!
Adoption costs really hit us hard this year, I'm not going to post how much it was (although if you want to know, you can email me and I'll tell you). We are so blessed to have adopted, but it makes us really have to work hard at being good stewards of our money and getting the hotel money back is such a blessing and an obvious sign the Lord did not want us to go.
And now I know you are wondering what presents Hannah got for Christmas...
1. A shopping cart
2. A car (not life size)
3. 120 pieces of plastic food
4. Pots and pans
5. Several books
6. An ornament
7. Corduroy the Bear
8. Two puzzles
9. Fragglerock DVD's
10. Toy organizer
Our little HB made out like a bandit this year. Our toy room is overflowing, as is our hearts.
Hannah's crawling has changed our lives and completely for the better. She definitely gets into things, but it's way better then the screaming. And Hannah now does NOT stop talking. She is constantly giving a running commentary about the things she is seeing as she crawls around the house. She spent 10 minutes playing with and talking to a radiator in my parents house. She has also learned to climb the stairs, uh oh!
Pictures of Christmas will be coming.