'Tis The Season

This past weekend was very eventful, and I thought that before I get bogged down with packing and last-minute details before leaving town that I would write a quick post about it.

On Friday we were supposed to go to a friend/co-worker's Christmas party, but when I got home from work I was not feeling very well...very congested and grumpy in general. So I'm thinking to myself "great, Self, get sick right before vacation...". After some thought and consideration we decided it would be best if we stayed home and layed low for the evening. Chris made dinner and brought me medicine while I sat on the couch and drank hot tea, and then we watched a movie (which I promptly fell asleep during...can't even tell you what we watched), and I got a full night of sleep for the first time in a long time!

The combination of all that actually left me waking up feeling pretty good on Saturday morning! We even got to sleep in till like 9:30...what a concept! We had a productive day of cleaning and gift wrapping on Saturday, then we got around for our two Christmas parties that night. The first was our neighbor's and let me just say: it was a blast! The drinks and snacks were fantastic, not to mention the white elephant gift exchange! All of the gifts were funny in their own way, but there were a few mentionable ones (well maybe they're more unmentionable, but they're noteworthy anyways!): our cop neighbor brought a pair of real cop handcuffs haha; someone brought two 40's and gloves and duct tape to play Edward 40 Hands; there was a box with a broken plate and some super glue; and last but not least, someone brought a make-your-own-dildo (black)! I won't tell you which one of those we got, but it was one of the ones listed above haha. Next we traveled over to Carmel for my high school friend Alli's Christmas party. It was so great to see her and her husband, since we haven't seen them since the wedding! And most of the guests were her college friends, but I knew most of them through her and we had a really great time. Their white elephant gift exchange was really funny too...there were some really sweet teacher regifts that made an appearance, a CD case with no CD in it (that came in a Dale Ernhardt bag I might add), a bucket of beach toys, and one of those color picture Bibles that are probably actually worth about $50 or so! Needless to say, we did a lot of laughing on Saturday night.

Sunday morning we went to church, I had GraceGivers but found out last-minute that Emma would not be there, so I just stayed and helped out in general. Then my mom and Jim came down in the afternoon to drop a car off at the Indy auction, so we got to have some alone time with them...played cards and went to dinner...which was really nice since we'll only see them for a couple days over break.

Tomorrow is my last day of work before Christmas...yay! I am doing some running around on Wednesday morning, combined with last-minute packing and double and triple checking that we have everything we need. As soon as Chris gets off work we'll drop Rudy off at the kennel and be on our way up north. We'll spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family (aside from a small Christmas Eve thing with Chris's family that my family will also be at), and then on Christmas night we will drive to Chicago, stay overnight there, and fly out around 6am on the 26th! We are absolutely thrilled for this vacation, and feel so blessed to have the opportunity to go, but it will definitely be bittersweet only seeing my family for such a short time over the holidays. If you're reading this, please pray for safe travels for us, and I hope everyone has a very blessed Christmas this year!