Merry Christmas! Just checking in early since I may get brave and tackle the shopping malls tomorrow morning. I was thinking of all those great sales I missed last weekend during our record breaking snow storm. We ended up with about 2 feet of snow in one day. The 7th biggest snow storm in December in Baltimore history. Now it is busy melting under all the rain. Tom spent the entire day last Saturday snowblowing our driveway 3 times and the neighbors two or more times. He had to take a break when the snow blower chewed up the neighbor's christmas light extension cord. But he was back out on Sunday for two more passes. Not to mention all the shoveling I had to do on the sidewalks and patio so Cookie could get out to go to the bathroom! Yes it was a whole lot of snow for use. Sadly Allison and I did not get to enjoy it too much since Allison had a whole bunch of tests to study for and a big paper to write. We spent our time indoors studying and typing. I also took advantage of some of the time to prepare for Christmas, although I was still up late Christmas eve setting everything up.
It turned out we spent a whole lot of time studying for naught. School was cancelled for the rest of the week. The kids now have a two week vacation. They spent the first week home with Tom while I went in to work. It didn't help Tom's schedule very well-he had some errands planned but did not get to keep to his schedule as efficiently as planned. And we really did not know if the kids were having school each day, so we kept up with Allison's studying. As I said, it was all for naught. So Scott managed to squeeze in a sleepover with our neighbor's son. And our neighbor's invited us over Sunday night for dessert, appetizers and champagne. They were heading off to Miami so we decided to try and get together for a pre Christmas visit and gift exchange for the kids.
And Tom was still trying to keep the kids occupied all week, so they ran off to the mall to pick up our family phot0s and caught the Chipmunk movie. (Tom slept and the kids thought the first movie was better). But I got my family Christmas photos and I started sending out the family Christmas cards this week. So if you haven't yet received your card, it is on the way. We were running a bit late this year since I decided I wanted a family photo with the dog. I had to locate a studio that allowed us to bring a dog and then there were only certain days and times allowed to bring in the dog. But it worked out well and the pictures turned out pretty cute. So look for it in the mail(along with my extensive yearly journal). And I still have some more cards to mail out this weekend. Tom was also busy sending out cards and gifts to coworkers this past week.
Our clinic was closed this Friday, but I am usually off anyway. We decided to catch the Christmas mass at the gorgeous chapel at my work site, the retirement community. We attended the beautiful mass on Thursday night at 7pm and had plenty of time to visit with our neighbors Christmas eve for dinner afterwards.
Of course, that meant I was up very late Christmas eve. And along came Christmas Day! The kids were very nice and gave us until 8am before dragging me out of bed to tear open the gifts. We managed to check out our stash and clean up in time to start cooking. I invited several families over to the house for dinner, so we all put together a potluck which turned out to be way too much food but delicious and a lot of fun. The kids even played a round of Scott's new Mario Monopoly game. Some of us would have enjoyed a drive out to historical Hampden for the Christmas lights, but the rain kept us away. Instead we sat down to enjoy Tom's Star Trek video.
So we managed to get in a few phone calls to most of you, unless of course your phone was busy, you weren't answering when we called, or you were busy talking to someone else. But we did dial everyone's phone today except Dan and Sheila who are in Missouri and Laura and DAn who we will hopefully be visiting soon in Detroit.
We will probably head out on Sunday if the roads look good.
So wish me good luck on shopping and my trip to the bank for a last Girl Scout cookie money deposit.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Kathleen and family