How I spent my Christmas vacation

All this holiday cheer has apparently rendered me unable to keep up on my blog. Here's a quick update on our Christmas festivities in no particular order:

• I didn't work for a whole two weeks; Nic did. Toward the end I started calling him to come home and entertain me.
  
• I was late to bed and late to rise; so was Nic, but he had to work each day.
  
• I started yet another quilt. Here's to another incomplete project!
  
• I cleaned out my whole house, including our cold storage.
• We went shopping--a lot--and I've decided that I'm always going to do all my Christmas shopping after Christmas.
• We babysat our friends' two-week-old baby girl. I fed her and changed her diaper and she still would only go to sleep for Nic.
• I reconnected with Cari, one of my mission companions, and Serod, a girl we taught in Mongolia.
• Nic acquired yet another old car.
  
• We saw Marley & Me. I sobbed uncontrollably. In fact, if I thought about it long enough I could probably cry again right now. Moxie, you can't ever leave me!
  
• We gave Sup and impromptu haircut after he came inside my parents' house looking like this:
  
  
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• There were many holiday parties. My favorite was the Wilcox family progressive dinner. The white elephant gift exchange consisted of a bunch of presents my mom had saved from last year's exchange and re-gifted again. My present: The same 70s-era wood serving platter from my aunt Claudia's wedding that I opened last year and conveniently "forgot" at my mom's house. Nic ended up with some Russian dehydrated fish jerky that the dogs found the other night and devoured. The whole house smelled like fish.
  
• We discovered Raymon's Raving Rabbids for the Wii. Best party game ever.
  
• Christmas morning I got to open my new MacBook Pro complete with Aperture, a new printer, and an iTouch. Thank you Nic! He didn't get forgotten though; I got him the paint he wanted for his Coronet.
  
  

Best of all, I got to spend a lot of time with family and friends. Thanks for a fabulous year! Awww.

It never ends

Christmas came early for Nic when my Grandpa Blaine asked him if he wanted an old car from his sister-in-law's garage. The next day (Christmas Eve) Nic sent me a picture of this:

Yes, this is another car; a Chrysler Windsor. For those of you keeping track, that brings the car total to seven. I don't know how this keeps happening. But you should see how excited Nic is.

Snowballed

No one is outside today so I let Moxie and Sup run around out front while I shoveled the walkway. When we came inside, Sup was almost completely covered with snowballs that wouldn't come off.

It appears that no matter what the weather is like outside, my golden retriever requires a shower after each outing.

Orange Cat

OK, so I know that my house won't fit anymore animals, but that doesn't mean that I can't have a porch cat.

Meet Orange Cat, the newest addition to our home. Orange Cat came to us a few weeks ago and greets me every morning asking for food. He (or she) used to run away every time I got near , but we're making progress and he now thinks I'm pretty swell. I also made a little comfy house for him because it's so cold.

Nic just shakes his head--but also makes sure I remember to feed our new family member.

Three years less than 30

To celebrate turning 27, I chose to go to San Diego and see as many animals as I possibly could. Nic was a very good sport and followed me all around the zoo, Sea World, the Wild Animal Park, and even took me to San Diego's biggest swap meet where I got the raddest vintage bread box ever.

Alice Jean King

As part of my birthday trip to San Diego, we drove to Laguna Hills to meet Miss Alice Jean King, who was born just last Thursday. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't do a lot of baby holding--but somehow little Alice even sweet talked me into giving her a bottle. We only stayed for an hour, and the whole time she slept in my arms.

Something tells me that she was just trying to trick me into thinking babies are easy. You're going to have to do a lot more convincing than that, Alice, but you sure are sweet.

Percocet and pie

The day after Nic had his knee surgery, he decided it would be a good idea to make pie for Thanksgiving--three different kinds of pie actually. And not knowing how involved pie making is--and willing to do anything to indulge my pill-popping husband--I agreed. (My mom could barely believe that Nic somehow convinced me to do this; I think she almost cried.)

We moved a loveseat over to the kitchen so Nic could elevate his leg and read me the directions from The New Best Recipe cookbook--which actually worked out perfect because I hate reading any sort of directions (especially directions without pictures) and Nic wasn't supposed to walk around yet.

In the end I'm glad we did it--we had a lot of fun--but I'm also glad I didn't know that it would end up taking us six hours to bake a pecan, pumpkin, and apple pie. And, oh boy, were our pies tasty. My mother would be so proud!

Here's a sampling of their deliciousness:


Oh, we even made the crusts from scratch...just FYI.