Tassie's Denver Adventure-Christmas Eve Edition

First, let me start by saying Merry Christmas! This is truly a miraculous time of year and I hope it finds you healthy, happy, and surrounded by the ones you love. I know I am.



Today is Christmas Eve. Traditionally, this is the evening where we open gifts so the tree can be emptied for Santa's visit the next morning. Not this year. My niece, Sable, is married and is spending Christmas Eve with her in-laws. We'll be doing the present thing tomorrow morning. Santa will have to shove his presents around all the other ones already there. Should be fun, as it always is. I wouldn't be completely honest if I didn't say there was a certain amount of sadness that goes with Christmas. There's all this hype prior to the season and then when it gets here, it's like a big letdown because it's over so quickly and you have to wait another year to have another one. For some reason, as tacky as I am, I don't tolerate Christmas stuff outside of the season. Go figure.

Well, if you've been following, I left yesterday's blog with the pondering of when I'd go to sleep last night. I really thought that I'd go to bed like at 8:30 but I managed to stay up until 11. Not much different than a regular night except there were no papers to grade, no lesson plans to write, and no other school related work! Yay for me!



Today's rundown:



I woke up early (Thanks Raelynn) and then came downstairs. My parents and Raelynn were already here. My mom made fried egg sandwiches for everyone and slowly people started getting up. Jayden spent the night last night. His crib is in the same room as the one that Raelynn is sleeping in. I know she didn't get to sleep until after 11, so I was quite surprised that she got up so early. I don't get this.....her body clock doesn't seem to work during the school week. I literally have to drag her out of bed. On the weekends or during vacations, she's up with the first light. I think she was lonely and tried to wake up Jayden, but was quickly instructed on the evils of waking up sleeping babies.

I spent some time hanging around the house watching Raelynn hover around and play with Jayden. I think she is really enjoying having a smaller person around that she can interact with. She's there for each moment of his day: eating, diaper changes, bathing, playing....you name it. She makes a lot of noise in the process so about mid-morning I was looking for some Motrin. I didn't end up taking it because I went to Target!

Melissa (my sister-in-law), my mom, and I went to Target for some necessities. I bought some stuff to make some appetizers with and found Raelynn some pink fur lined snow boats. I enjoyed pushing the cart around Target. The only thing I bought for myself was a bracelet. After the Target trip, we went to Chipotle to eat. This place is amazing. I really look forward to it when I visit Denver. I did manage to find one closer to home this summer when I went on a shopping trip with some friends to Birmingham. The only way I can describe it is sort of like a Subway for burritos and tacos. The burrito you end up getting looks and feels like a brick. It's delicious.

When I came home, I ate my burrito and get Raelynn all dolled up to go outside and play in the snow. She had a good time tromping around the yard. The snow came up to the top of her snow boots. She made some snowballs and played until she got cold.

At some point, I got really sleepy so I went to lay down for a nap. That's one thing that I enjoy about vacations. If you stay up late and wake up early, you can always take a nap. David, Melissa, and Susan left to go shopping while I napped. David was going to buy a GPS, but the MicroCenter didn't have one in stock. He did come home with some snow boots. I didn't buy myself any at Target. There was no way I could afford boots for both Raelynn and myself. I've been using my mom's boots that she got for $7 at Hudson's Dirt Cheap at home. I've never been to that store, but that's another post for another day.

For dinner, Melissa cooked jambalaya, salad, and garlic bread. It was good and I don't even like seafood. After dinner, David, Susan (David's sister), Christian (my nephew), Raelynn, and I went walking around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. We usually take an evening at home and drive around and look at them, but things were so crazy trying to get ready to leave that we didn't get a chance. Tonight was fun. I don't know what I liked better: the lights or watching Raelynn tromp through the snow. Everyone else walked in the street where the snow was packed down but Raelynn managed to find each snow bank and plow her way through them. The lights were pretty cool too. The only "Denver-y" thing I found was that if you have snow on top of blinking Christmas lights, it looks very cool. I'm a big fan of Christmas lights. (This is one thing that I can tolerate year round.)

After the light watching, I gave Raelynn a bath and washed her hair. She's sitting in the living room with my parents right now watching something on TV. She didn't pick it out, so I can't imagine what she'll get from whatever crime show my parents picked out. I really should have put her in bed by now, but I'm hoping that if she stays up late, she'll sleep late too. I can dream, right?

David and Susan are playing their third game of Scrabble tonight. David amazes me in Scrabble. He really has problems with spelling at times, but manages to whip everyone in Scrabble. Hugh is in the kitchen making cafe con leche (Cuban lattes) and I'm not sure where Melissa is. Christian is wandering around the house. Me.....I'm sitting here typing away on the computer and loving every minute of the high speed wireless service that my brother has. How about you? What are you doing tonight?

Until tomorrow.......