Holiday Wrap-Up 2008

 

*IMAGE HEAVY* 

 

Our holidays really got rolling around here with a Girl’s Night on December 6^th.  So I thought I’d share those pics first!

 

Here’s one of Tristan, me, Mijha, and Rachel (left to right):

 

 

 

I was left in charge of Tristan which was not such a bad thing if you like wearing sesame noodles.  The only problem was the Asian hibachi chef kept putting food on Tristan’s plate that was incredibly HOT.  I spent half the time trying to keep this old guy that barely spoke English from giving the 1yr old third degree burns.

 

On the other side was Tina but she was running the camera.  So here’s a pic of Clara (in white) and Sonya (best known for an infamous Girl’s Night where she kept pulling down her mini-skirt and showing us her thong all the while proclaiming that she was “strictly dickly”…she was subdued on this evening having moved out of her marital home that morning…there’s a story there and I hope to hell I get to hear it soon!):

 

 

 

Clara’s son Junior and Rachel’s little girl Naudia were VERY excited about the aquarium:

 

 

 

December 19^th was M.’s graduation and he asked me to come.  I did and I took pics and even video for his mother:

 

 

 

I also managed to get to Fort Polk and provide a little Christmas cheer to the barracks room of my new guy (whom I had barely met at that point…but I just couldn’t take the idea of his kids being without a tree on Christmas day when they were there with him).  I brought candy canes for each of the kids and him, and he and I decorated the tree together.  It was incredibly nice, and I could tell that he was genuinely happy decorating it together (M. and I tried that once just a month after we were married…it sucked ass…M. isn’t much for any group activity).  And, here’s a peek at that tiny little tree with it’s tons of tinsel (my guy kept throwing on tinsel…even more than I normally put on and that’s SAYIN’ SOMETHIN’!):

 

 

 

Christmas Day was hectic!  And I mean!  Remember Thanksgiving when I had THREE of them???  Well, I cut it down to two Christmases.  At Mom’s we had Rachel, Naudia, Tristan, and our other Girl’s Night regular Rebeca, and we had old family friends: Martha, Doug, and their daughter Helen.  Just 13 people and a dog and a parrot!  It was a rollercoaster.  Mom had everyone get up at 5:30am to open presents because I was taking a dinner to Fort Polk for my new guy and his kids (since they were stuck in barracks…don’t worry you’ll hear about him in the next day or two).  I made an interesting haul: a knitting loom set, a cookie jar, perfume, an addition to my Santa Claus collection, and one gift that I’m putting at the end of this post.  Tina had given Pascal an entire wardrobe of dog clothes (yeah, I thought I was the crazy dog lady around here…apparently not), but one was the cutest little red and white, Nordic sweater and I HAD to put it on him! 

 

Here’s a pic of Doug, Tina, Rachel, Pascal, Naudia, Tristan and Rebeca (left to right):

 

 

 

 

And, here’s one of Helen, Martha, Doug, and Rachel (left to right):

 

 

 

Unfortunately, Rachel and company were an hour late.  So, by the time they got there, I had about 30 minutes before I had to leave and head to Fort Polk to meet up with my guy and meet his kids for the first time (YIKES!…that is something I’ve never done early on in a relationship, but he asked a few times and I finally decided that maybe me not meeting the kids was more of me protecting myself than me protecting the kid’s feelings).  It was a lovely day and I survived it despite being on the road most of the day (I still went to work at Brian’s for a few hours that morning but he decided that he didn’t want Christmas dinner just homemade chicken and dumplings for Christmas Eve on which I worked my little fingers to the bone).

Oh yeah…  I almost forgot about my last present!  It was from M. (he got some more tiger underwear from me…I had bought them months ago…and yes, the next post will catch you up on what’s up there too).  But, Tina wrapped it in true Tina-style!  See if you can guess what it is!