Cutting losses

Hey all ... so incase you haven't noticed - I took a little hiatus from blogging. We went home to Alabama to mark the season with family and friends. It was a great time. Truly.

So in an effort to catch back up I'm going to cut my losses (a'la the blog title) and do basically what amounts to a picture page. Enjoy.

Alright last Tuesday (Dec. 21 and also the date that Josh proposed to me four years ago) we did our own Christmas. We went to dinner then came back to do a gift exchange at the house. We had a great time.... The pups got balls and bones ... their ideal gifts.

I got J a lot of Auburn Engineering gear and some books.
I got a cute sweater, another shirt, some books and Bath and Body Works products. Josh did good! :)

On Wednesday, we worked until around 10-ish and then packed it all in the truck and headed over to Enterprise a little after noon. That was a lovely 5-hour car ride. The puppers were well behaved and honestly it went by fast. At least for me, I slept. Once we arrived we bunked with my parents but all of us (J's folks and mine) went to dinner that night. Then, on Thursday, I got up and went to work out at the YMCA. Talk about a blasty from the pasty - I used to teach karate there with my Dad when I was 16. Crazy.

And it hasn't changed much in 10 years. Still ghetto but it works. I did some elliptical and weights. After getting ready, my mom and I went to pick up my sweet (and extremely pregnant bestie, Megan). If she had little Ava tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised. She looks READY. And for the most part she is - the nursery is adorable and she has tons of clothes. My mom is concerned that she doesn't have enough diapers ... but they'll stock up before she arrives, I'm sure. We ate lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and just had THE best time. So great seeing her. I wished we could have hung out longer. After that excursion, we had pl,ans to meet up with J's folks at a little bar on the way to dinner at my favorite restaurant (and former place of employement) The Old Mill in Dothan.

We did get in a few rounds of pool whislt hanging at the bar ... apparently with a lot of folks my Dad sent to jail at one point or another - eeek.

Geez. Doesn't he look thrilled?

Moving right along to Christmas Eve ... yay! It's the fam tradition to do the "kids' Christmas" (niece Hailey and nephew Hunter) that morning. So we dropped by at 8 a.m. And as per usual I was heckled by this non-relative about when we were going to procreate. She does it every year. And I always have visions of telling her off or at least that my reproductive organs are out of her jurisdicition but as usual I just took it. Still pisses me off though.

Other than that, it was fun. Hunter even took me for a spin in the go cart.

Josh and I with the kids.

The rest of Christmas Eve consisted of cooking. Pre-cooking rather for the big Christmas lunch. We were going to host my grandmother and grandfather at my parents house. I made a ton of stuff: Mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, peas, corn and dressing. We bought the meats from J's parents store.

That evening we went to an early dinner at Sante Fe followed by a night of watching holiday staples like, "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street." We played spades and had drinks. Great time!!

Christmas morning - was awesome of course. We opened gifts first thing. I got clothes and a Kindle and J got a NICE sports coat, dress slacks and video games. Love the fact that his "grown up" items are off set by PS3 games. Ha! After that and cleaning up we had lunch. My grandmother had to come alone because my grandfather is in poor health. I felt really bad for her.

She did say that my cooking was excellent...which makes me SO happy. She's the best cook I know so it was high praise indeed. After lunch, we went to J's families' place. We spent the rest of our time there. My parents came over that night too. We did the gift swap and had an amazing steak dinner. Pretty soon it was time to crash. Overall a fantastic day!

Sunday was Hailey Sue's birthday. She turned 5! We hung out and ran errands. I read A LOT too. That Kindle is AWESOME. I downloaded "Full Dark, No Stars" by Steven King. It's great. I couldn't put it down. More on that later.

SO ... we had Hailey's party that afternoon - we even were able to catch some snow flurries, though they didn't show up on camera.

then had to swing by a shindig at Tony Urech's parent's house. It was great seeing everyone. Josh loved being with his boys.

We went back to J's for ANOTHER dinner. Seriously. I gained 30 lbs over this past week. My parents came to that event too.

Well that's a start. I'll fill in some more blanks (i.e. Monday through Tuesday) later. Adios.