Holiday Sledding Fun

On Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day we went out to the big hill in Brookings to do some holiday sledding. The first time Anthony and Eric went by themselves they had tons of fun. The second day we all went -- Eric, Anthony, Kristin, and I. Then Eric's mom, grandma, and great aunt sat in the nice, warm van to watch the festivities. It was snowing on Christmas Day and some fresh snow was on top. Plus, we had the hill to ourselves.

Anthony and I took a death-defying run where we sailed over some bumps at the very end of the hill. He didn't like that too much and I don't blame him. So he didn't go with me after that! Eric and I went down a few times -- I thought we were going to just start the hill on fire, but we didn't. I think we may have had too much weight on it. The combination of Anthony and I (and I didn't dig my heels in the snow to slow us down, either) was the perfect cocktail of exhilaration and danger! I haven't been sledding in so long it was great fun.

Picture Backlog

Here are some random pictures that I've been meaning to post, but haven't been caught up. This kind of sums up our December....

In the beginning of December, we went to our friend, Annie's, wedding. It was fun catching up with old friends from college and seeing another pal join the club.

I was able to visit Tony & Kayla while I was out in RC for some training. Unfortunately it also happened to be the night that Olivia barfed a few times and then Noah got sick the next day. Everyone's mind was elsewhere, but they had a few good hours of unsickness. Tell me they aren't going to look identical when they're older!
Looks like a typical night at our house. Bingo is so loveable he just HAS to be up someone's lap if they're on the couch. We kind of have our nightly ritual when I dock myself on the couch for the evening to read, Bingo jumps up right away and lays on my stomach. Then Lily begs to be brought up to the couch, where she snuggles up by my feet. Sometimes Yoda even gets up there by Bingo and then I'm totally locked in by pets. I swear I have to disrupt everyone's slumber just to get up and go to the bathroom. And when I do that..watch out! They give me evil, evil glares.
Lily is our short-school bus dog. She is so sweet and good natured, but she really got the shaft in the medical department. She has some sort of skin disorder and she needs lots of baths with her special shampoo. I was always giving her a bath in the tub, but there was so much room that she would walk around when was trying to rinse her with warm water. So I was just chasing a wet, shivering Shih-Tzu around the tub, not really accomplishing much. After about 5 years of this, I suddenly had the idea last week to put her in the sink and wash her. Wow! I totally can't believe I didn't think of that sooner. It worked well. She only tried to kamikaze jump out of the sink once. I don't know what kids could throw at us that these creatures have not yet!

Ready for Christmas

Eric and I finally got our Christmas decorations up. We have a 7.5' artificial tree, but it's too big for our living room, so Eric left off the bottom part of the tree stalk and now we have a little mini tree. We put some books under the base so at least it's as tall as us. That was my requirement. We have a house, not an apartment in New York, so our tree has to at least be life-size.


I also caught Bingo loving on the celery. I was using it to make stuffing and it was sitting on the pub table. When I turned around Bingo had jumped on the table and was frantically rubbing his face on the celery. I think I heard somewhere that celery is related to catnip. He was obsessed! His little back was twitching and he rubbed his face against it for 10 min. He smelled pretty when he was done. Then he was all fired up and went to kick the crap out of someone. The latest kitty troublemaking is playing with the Christmas tree. Yoda sits under it and I hear a 'scritch, scritch' sound. Yoda is staring straight at me with her huge kitty eyes, but her head is half turned and she's gnawing on the tree limbs. I yell "Freeze!" and she stops, mouth half open. She's completely baiting me -- she just wants to play. I can't even get mad it's so hilarious.

I'm thankful for...

Getting to see my folks before they took off for their RV adventure in Arizona! Eric and I hosted our first holiday meal at our house when my folks came to visit. I just did a really simple meal and it turned out great. We tested out our "dining room" (aka - bedroom turned dining room). It was plenty spacious so now we're ready for more holiday meals!

But you know what? Even though Thanksgiving was only a few weeks ago, it seems like old news so here are some pictures.