Hungry, hungry kittens!

Every Christmas we buy a can of cat food for the cats. We don't want them to think they will get it all year long, but once a year seems to be good. We aren't the kind of people that get presents for our cats at Christmas, though we have bought a new toy or treat (but we NEVER wrap them!). Juliet liked the canned food a lot more than Simba. There is also a picture of Simba eating out of the food box again!

A late Merry Christmas!

It has been a busy but wonderful week for us. Matt had to work Monday and Tuesday. We don't see the point in lugging our Christmas gifts for each other to the other coast, so we decided to open gifts Monday evening. Yes, that meant that Matt had to spend Monday's lunch break buying gifts for me and wrapping them as soon as he got home, but, to quote him, he "has a reputation to uphold"! Matt was able to get off work a little early Tuesday and we packed up the car and headed to Tampa to stay with his dad and family. It was so nice to see them and spend time with just the five of us. Jean made a great Christmas Eve lunch and her Christmas chocolate peppermint pie. Yum! We are going to have to take a lot of pictures to fill up the 8G memory card they gave us with our new camera and put pictures on our new digital picture frame. Thank you for our wonderful gifts!

Tuesday evening we headed to my parents to have Noche Buena with my parents, the Eikelands, the Woodsons, Grandma and Barbara Wurdeman. Even though dad had a rough time getting dinner from the restaurant the food was good. Barbara Wurdeman made her sugar cookies which were a hit at Thanksgiving and we were all looking forward to the Christmas encore.

We stayed Christmas Eve at Matt's mom's house. We didn't stay up too late and luckily we got up earlier than planned so we could get ready to go to Mimi and Gramps' house after we did gifts with Barbara. She did a great job picking out dress and casual shirts for Matt and I got some nice lotions from Bath and Body Works. We both love the Christmas pillow and blanket as well as the Halloween candy dishes. At Mimi and Gramps's we opened presents with the cousins and aunts and uncles and had a delicious meal. I think Brian has the mashed potatoes' recipe down! After lunch we played Humdinger. You get a card with a song on it that you have to hum and hopefully the other people will guess the song. Time flew and we were off for my parents.

When we got to my parents house, Grandma had just started opening her gifts. I'm glad she hadn't opened the one from us yet! Matt and I must have been good this year because there were even gifts there for us! We were both excited about our big gifts, Matt's new Xbox game and my new Shark dust buster. Matt commented that mom did a good job buying gifts that he liked. (I did wash a new wash cloth so I can use it later today!) It wasn't long before we headed to the Woodson's for Christmas dinner. Barbara and Jack sure put together a great meal! I think Matt and I both tried April's homemade bread, which was good. No one was really up for dessert, though I think almost everyone had a little something! We stayed with my parents that night. Matt went to bed early since he was getting up to go to breakfast with his after Christmas shopping family. We stayed up talking until the girls got the giggles, a surefire sign that we need to go to bed.

Friday morning mom made French toast on her new griddle and we visited until Matt got back from breakfast and then we loaded up the car for our trip back home. It's always so nice to see everyone!

School's out for Christmas!

Monday I never thought today would come, but time certainly flies these days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This was a really easy week for me because the last 3 days have been half days for the students because of exams. I had to work full days Monday - Thursday, but I was able to leave at noon today. That was awesome because I was able to meet up with Matt for lunch. He still stuck me with the bill, though. After lunch I was able to finish up my Christmas shopping. That is so great to be able to say!! Matt, on the other hand, let's just say it's not Christmas Eve. :)

I barely beat Matt home and was able to lock myself in the room to wrap his gifts. Yes, I do think he would have come in if I didn't lock the door! When I was finished I was able to show him all of the gifts I got from my students. The families are so generous, and I know many are hurting during these economic times. I love my job (99% of the time!) and I love my students (I won't comment on how much of the time..) and the gifts are never expected. I truly am blessed!

Savannah

When the staff at school decided to get a group to go to Savannah I was quick to put our names on the list. Matt and I went to Savannah about 4 years ago. I like to call that the trip that Matt didn't propose on, because I was so sure it was coming!! We went to Uncle Bubba's for lunch. I think he is Paula Deen's brother. After lunch he came into the room and we got to take pictures with him. He seemed really nice and he also seemed like he wanted to sell out his gift shop. We walked with another couple for a while and they wanted to shop and we wanted to walk around the squares and look at the historic houses. I do wish we bought another walking map so we knew what we were looking at! The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was open for visitors and that is a beautiful building! We went to Fuddruckers for dinner and walked by the riverfront for a little while before heading back to the bus. I think we were both glad that we could sit and that neither of us had to drive home. I wore a pedometer and it said that we walked 5.3 miles. I figure even if it's off by 10% that's still a lot of walking!! We'd like to go back and make a weekend trip of it, but that won't be for a while, though probably not another 4 years! I'm only including a few of the pictures we took. Enjoy!

Finished product

Here are the final pictures of our outside lights. We took Juliet outside to check them out too!!

Simba Snuggle

I usually get up earlier than Matt does on the weekend. When I went back in the room to grab something, this is what I saw

Posting crazy!

I finally got around to posting again, so there are 4 new posts below and lots of pictures. Enjoy!

Christmas Decorations

We started putting out our Christmas decorations today. I think we bought most of the stuff 2 years ago, but we didn't put it out last year. Matt's mom, grandma and aunt did get us the penguins and the igloo last year, so those are new. It gets dark so early now that we didn't get much done, but we'll keep working and hopefully finish up this weekend. Notice our tree in the window. We did put that up this weekend, though we haven't decorated it yet (it's a prelit tree).

Lots of Ice!

Our garage is full of boxes of Christmas decorations, so I can't pull my car in the garage. That was fine until this morning when I found ice on my car before I left for work. It took a while for it to melt so I could leave, but we got some great pictures!

Christmas with the Villacampas

We got to celebrate Christmas twice last week, once with Matt's brother's family and once with my brother's family! Here are pictures of the Villacampa Christmas.

Caitlin's first Thanksgiving and Christmas

We loved meeting Caitlin and seeing Patrick and Mariruth and the rest of the family last week. Of course, we took tons of pictures and I'm just going to post several slideshows rather than doing separate posts for each.

Caitlin's Thanksgiving at Mimi and Gramps:

Thanksgiving at Jim and Jean's house

Christmas at Barbara's