Pre-Christmas Celebration

Only 9 days until Christmas, people! And guess what? I finished my Christmas shopping! I had a few random items that I needed to pick up and I took care of that on Saturday. I also managed to fit in cleaning the house. I'm hoping we can keep it semi-clean for this week so that MAYBE we'll be able to come home to a clean house after Christmas. I say maybe because my cats will still be here and there is no telling what they'll do to trash the house - throw a party, late night binging. You know, the norm.

No, seriously. Cats can be pretty destructive. Especially after two weeks of minimal contact. Sara will be taking care of the kitties and our fish, but they always get rowdy when we're gone for long periods of time. I expect to find numerous hair balls around the house (they build up quicker when Callaway isn't around to clean up after them), maybe a broken candle holder or two and most likely all of our throw rugs will be in a pile. I don't know what it is about throw rugs, but for some reason my cats always seem to think there is something under them. They will have the rugs turned inside out and upside-down before the realize there isn't actually anything underneath. Damn cats.

Callaway will be staying with Godiva at Chris and Alexa's house. I know they would have watched him anyway, but I'm trying to think of it as an exchange for hanging out with Godiva during the hurricane evacuation. It seems too good to be true to not have to spend $15 per night for a boarding kennel that will only take him out twice a day to pee. This is The Best Place for him to stay. He'll have lots of attention and another big dog to harass the whole time. I expect Callaway to have lost 10 pounds by the time we get him back with all the exercise he'll be getting. I feel sorry for Godiva already. Poor old man.

After all the cleaning and shopping on Saturday I set up a little holiday wrapping party for Travis and I, complete with Christmas music, hot chocolate and gift wrapping. Good times. I learned already that it is a bad idea to wrap any presents that we are bringing home to Illinois. They will only get destroyed in the transport. Instead, we just wrapped everything we needed for here (mostly gifts for all the babies in our life) and put together holiday goodie bags.

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back. Travis and I have done a lot of laying down lately. Working six days a week takes a lot out of Travis and I can't help but be sucked into the laziness when he's home. It's not fair that I be running around having all the fun when he's sitting on his ass at home, right?

Sunday evening we went up to Chris and Alexa's for a pre-Christmas celebration with them, Alexa's parents and a couple other friends. Diane (Alexa's mom) made an awesome Christmasy dinner that we all enjoyed immensely. What better way to finish a holiday celebration than to watch Tropic Thunder?! LOL! It was actually kind of funny. We saw the first half of it at a drive in theater, but we weren't supposed to be watching it. After the movie, we turned the cars around, changed the radio station for sound and watched Tropic Thunder on a far-off screen. It was getting late and everyone was cranky, so we didn't watch the rest of the film. I'm glad we were able to watch it again, because I would never have rented it for just Travis and I.

Only five days until we leave for Illinois!!!