Well, it’s that day again.

The girls, who refused to go to sleep before 10:30, were, of course, up by 7:30 AM.  Once again I was wracked by guilt that ‘Santa’ did not come to our house.  I hate this day because of crap like that.

But we got going by 9:45 and headed out.  I left my computer running recovery software on a corrupt SDHC card.

We stopped in Montpelier and got gas and I got a free coffee.  The cashier didn’t charge me or the Montpelier police officer.

We went up the road that Cassandra and Dan moved to, but I couldn’t find any of my notes about where they live, so we didn’t find them.

Next it was off to Burlington for Errol’s train set.  We drove up into the New North End and easily found the place.  We wanted Errol to not see the box, so when I drove too far, I backed the car up into the driveway.  Steph went to the door and came right back and tossed the box in the back of the volvo.

I took Route 7 down to New Haven because I knew there’s be almost no traffic.  It was nice and quick.

We got to Dad’s house and I had Olivia put Kay’s presents under the small pine tree he had on the desk in the living room.  Then Olivia moved all of the presents from Dad and Hildgund from the big chest onto the table.  We opened them right away, before he had lunch.

Errol, was – of course – thrilled with his train set.  He opened Dad’s which was a little circle made in Middlebury, then we got out the new one we just picked up in Burlington which was, as usual, made in China.

Dad got Olivia a drawing stand.  The idea is that you trace an image from a small overhead projector that uses GAF viewmaster type disks as image sources.  But it was cheap Made in China crap and so it didn’t work even once.  Dad and I tried to fix it, but it was no use.

She also got a Physics set, with things like pan-scales and a car with a ballon.  You fill up the balloon and the ‘jet’ propulsion sends it forward.

The family got a fun game made by the Amish: the Farm Chore game!  You draw cards and they have a chore on them, then you role the die to move to the area of the board that the chore is to be done.  Once you have 7 chores completed, you can head for the swimming hole.  The first one there wins the game!  Made by Stoltzfus in 2006.  Very Amish.

Dad gave me a set of those slip-on ice-walking things.  That is useful.

We had a great time.