Well, Merry Christmas.
It seems to have just come and gone in a flash. All the preparation, and the high hopes for "traditions", gone in just one day.
It was hard to get in the holiday spirit this year (as you can tell by my t-shirt). Scott says it's because it's so damn hot here (it was 75 on xmas day), but I think it's because we are getting older and that magic of Christmas is just gone. It might also be the fact that we are away from our families, and although I love you honey, us and the furry kids do not make a large and exciting family.
What was a very nice treat for me this year was that I got 2 whole days off work this year. SoftMed was a grinch and only gave us the 25th off, but 3M gives us both the 24th and 25th off! A 3 day work week is so nice, but I do seem swamped with trying to get everything taken care of and covered while we are out all of next week. There is only one site that I feel that I am leaving high and dry, since they are going live the week that I get back to the office - but I think they can handle it and they will be fine. If everything is not perfect for go-live, I really don't care too much - they will be little things anyway...
So we started the holiday season with getting a tree, and decorating it. Bear and Chewie had their fill of some ornaments, which you can clearly see the next morning on their bathroom breaks. I thought I was doing so well with Xmas shopping, and my goal was to get everything in the mail before Dec 15th. Well, although everything was purchased, it was the boxing and packing up that took us longer than expected. So after 3 trips to Postal Annex and 1 to USPS (and the equivalent in shipping costs than the total presents), we finally got everything packed and shipped only to learn that most things would arrive the day after xmas.
I really wanted to bake some bread (I got these adorable mini-loaf ceramic pans) and make some cookies (I actually bought a cookie press), but these did not get done in time to mail out to family. I finally made the bread on xmas eve, and guess who ate 2 whole mini-loaves of bread... Bear of course. I was pissed. So these cute ceramic pans will wait until next year to be given to a human. Another tradition that was not fulfilled this year was our snowboarding on xmas day. I woke up late, it was 75 degrees, and it just didn't seem worth it to make the trek out there. Oh well...
Scott's xmas letter this year was just not very funny - I really married more of a comic than comes across in the letter. And we missed some key highlights of the year! We went to Vegas (Scott's first time there, you think he would remember it and all those boobies), and he went sea fishing with my Dad in June. The summer was not entirely a boring job hunting summer.
We did have a very nice xmas eve with my parents and their friend Rich. It's very sad, he was all alone on xmas so my parents invited him over. He brought pictures of his grand kids to show us (they are in NC), and he was wearing a very festive red vest. Mom made a pork dish that was excellent, which is a traditional Bolivian dish. Who knew we had Bolivian traditions?! Needless to say, I have never had this pork dish at xmas.. so much for traditions, huh? It's funny - I am completely 100% my dad's daughter. We gave each other the same thing - a wine decanter gadget that decants as it pours out of the bottle. So we did a taste test and this thing really works! I love it!
Scott and I exchanged presents xmas morning - Santa was good to us, not so much to the naughty dogs. We then proceeded to chill the rest of the day and actually found an open grocery store to make my lasagna for dinner that night. Overall, a great xmas!
Now - onto 2008, and I am totally looking forward to our trip to NYC to ring in the new year with the Weinsafts. Woohoo!
Happy New Year everyone!
