Greetings from the days after
Christmas! I'm writing to you from that wonderful time between
Christmas and New Year when our office is still closed and we are
mandated to stay at home and RELAX. Which is okay by me. We have
just dropped off the last of our Holiday visitors off at the airport
and the house has mostly contracted to its previous size.
I had a really great time.
The best part was being a host. I
don't know if Dad was all swelling with pride for me, but I was
pretty chuffed for myself. I own a house that can contain my entire
family, and can construct and serve enough food to feed our whole
Preecs Army, which I did on several occasions. Pizza Night, Krub,
and the wonderful pseudo-thanksgiving of Christmas Eve were all
fantastic hits, and we managed to balance that out on the other end
with a couple of solid days of eating nothing but leftovers, allowing
our fridge to mostly return to its normal state. We still have a
little turkey left over, if anyone wants some.
Christmas itself was a hoot, especially
now that Tyler is old enough to actually participate, mostly. He
opened presents and got really excited when he got cool new things.
The top three, clearly, are the Big Spider-man Tent, the Elmo
Counting Toy, and the packing peanuts that came with his new
G-Diapers. We may have to go buy those in bulk for next year. There
was a lot of squealing and stomping with delight.
I also came off pretty well, especially
as Jessie wrapped all my new, fancy Paint Brushes individually. And
I got a really cool backpack. I'm excited to take that one out on
the road. Jess got a laptop and Kelsey got a Surface. Sandlin and
Matt got a ticket from Seattle to Austin, which, since it covers
several thousand miles, clearly wins the 'biggest present' award. GW
also came by with Kelsey and got a really cool rubber band gun. He
was a very gracious guest, totally up for everything. Very hipster,
too, so I think his favorite present may just have been 'Austin'. :)
Tyler's cute new thing is 'head bonks'.
I am hopefully teaching him to bonk gently, or at least he has
figured it out for himself, but it's a really cute thing for him to
do. He has also started using 'Thank You' mostly appropriately.
The cats, too, would like to extend
their thanks to everyone for coming by and giving them so much nice
attention. They really appreciate it.
And, finally, a little story. I was
out yesterday taking down the Xmas lights in front of the house when
a couple of dogs that I recognized as having been walked by the house
before came trotting down the street, owners nowhere to be seen. I
managed to call one of them over, pick him up, and then store him in
our backyard. The other one, larger, was clearly just too excited to
be kept still, and so he trotted off down the street. I followed
him, hoping to corral him toward my backyard, when from a couple of
streets over I heard someone calling dogs. I gave Jessie a call to
let her know what the deal was. She had just woken up from a nap and
her brain hadn't quite completed its startup sequence.
“Hey, Jess.”
“Yeah?”
“There's a Dog in our backyard.
Don't let him out.”
“What?”
“There is a Dog in our backyard.
Don't let him out.”
“Don't let who out, Tyler? Why is
there a dog in our backyard?”
“I saw some escaped dogs going down
the street, I managed to get one in our backyard, and I'm trying to
heard the other one. Don't let the dog out of the backyard.”
“Oooh...hey, Tyler, look. A Doggy!”
Luckily, the owners made their way
closer to me, and I signaled to them when they came around a corner.
Then the dog heard familiar voices and ran back to the owners. I
asked if they were missing another dog, and they were, lucky me. I
brought them to my house and returned the final dog to his rightful
place. Evidently their backyard was small-dog proof. But not quite
big-dog proof. Time to get a new fence.
-N
