At the end of July last year, we decided that we wouldn’t be able to make it home to Louisiana for Christmas.  Chris had started a new job in April and was still building up vacation time and we just wouldn’t have enough to make the trip home.  I wasn’t too broken up about it, since I had been home (briefly) in September, and we had had several visits from family over the spring and summer here in Maryland.

Another reason I felt okay about it though, was that I didn’t want my one visit home every year to be in crappy December.  I mean, it’s not even crawfish season, for goodness sake!  It’s my least favorite time of the year to visit home – there are no music festivals or anything really fun going on, the weather is usually awful, and I felt like my dear husband was missing a lot of what my home state had to offer.  Plus, I haven’t had boiled crawfish in over 6 years!

That’s NOT COOL.

Mmmhhh, crawfish…

So, in July, we discussed the idea of NOT going home for Christmas every year…why not visit in April instead?  Festival Internationale is always at the end of April, crawfish are in season, and the odds of the weather being nice were much higher.

Sounds like a good plan, right?  The family was okay with it, Chris was okay with it.  Great!

So there we are, just a couple of days before Christmas alone together here in Maryland, and we find out about an adoption situation.

The mother was in Louisiana.

And she was due in April.

If you do some backward math, that means baby was conceived in July.

Wow.

Kinda gives me shivers up and down my spine.