It's been a long time, I know. Things here have been CR-AZY! Let me try to catch you up, and then I'll really try hard to get back to normal posting status.
A couple weeks ago, before the Arctic weather took hold of my sleep little town, on a lovely Saturday afternoon, the boys and I were waiting patiently for The Boo to be dropped off after a sleepover. I was sitting in the front room, and caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of my eye. I looked out the window and what did I see? But a pudgy, short Santa, walking towards me (not really towards me, but I liked the rhyme). I thought it was a fig-newton of my imagination, but when I looked twice, he was still there. He was just wandering around in the middle of the street, occasionally waving at cars that passed by, with what looked like a mother in tow. He meandered over to the Bed and Breakfast, sat on the stone wall, and flopped backwards. He lay there on his back, kicking his little legs in the air. It was at this point that I decided I couldn't resist this drama. "Sous Chef! Sous Chef!" I called. I handed The Sous Chef the camera, pointed at Santa and said, "Go! Be your sneaky self!" He ran out the door, and disappeared before my eyes. I watched out the window as the Santa's mom coerced him into several poses and took pictures, while the Sous Chef was nowhere in sight. As Santa was waddling back to his sleigh (which turned out to be a red minivan), I saw The Sous Chef walking casual-as-could-be down the sidewalk, no sign of the camera. Santa mounted his sleigh and promptly ripped off all his holiday garb, and off they flew. Later that day, after single-handedly executing a family of vermin I might add, the kids and I were running errands and ended up at the pharmacy. While waiting in line, I looked to my left, and wonder upon wonders, there was Santa, disguised as a little boy, stuffing his face full of candy while his mother printed out pictures.
Fast-forward to Thanksgiving. We stayed home this year, and my Dad, step-mother, sister, and The Big D came to visit. Here's The Big D with "Fire Tiger," although I really tried to urge him to change his name to Gustav.
The Irishman was asleep before 1:30. That monitor sure is a cozy headrest!
I brined the turkey this year, something I've not done before. It's a little unwieldy, a little messy, but brining is the way to go for me from here on out. The turkey was fabulous, and really, I don't like turkey. The Irishman and The Sous Chef made an incredible gravy, we made the traditional cranberry sauce, which no one likes but eats because of tradition, and had chocolate butter pie and pumpkin caramel cheesecake. It was so good to spend time with our family, and the time for them to go came way too soon. Later that night, The Irishman and Bubba, because they are crazy, left to begin Christmas shopping. The stores here opened at 12:00 a.m. They got home in time to wake me up for work, and then crashed. The Irishman went to work around 10:30, and Bubba didn't get up until noon, although that's been known to happen even when he's not pulled an all-nighter.
In other news, The Irishman and I actually had a date. We banned the kids from making any plans on this particular Friday, which had special significance. That Friday was the opening of Twilight. I had pre-ordered the tickets to make sure they weren't swooped up by the teenage masses and told The Irishman the rest of the night was up to him. We ate dinner at The Hereford House (not the one that burned down, clearly) at what would be considered Happy Hour for most. I didn't want to be late and was worried there would be lines. We arrived 45 minutes prior to the movie, and the line was ridiculous. I couldn't imagine that so many people would be able to fit in on theater. The movie was fair, following the general theme of the book, and really, who wouldn't fall for a vampire that looked like Robert Pattinson? Just be sure to wrap yourself in a few extra blankets and you'll never know that his body is the temperature of most sub-zero refrigerators. I was very proud of myself for making it through the movie without giving the evil eye to the young girl behind us that squealed every time a cute boy showed up on screen. Yes, I'm growing up.
Nana arrived the day after Thanksgiving, and on Saturday we braved the snow and nastiness to head out to Bob Jones Shoes, because a visit from Nana would not be complete without making that trip. We walked away saddened and empty-handed, which is unexplainable. We even had a great parking spot, which is always a sign that we will hit shoe-gold! We motored on to Target Boutique, in search of a fan to ease The Sous Chef's sleep in the sauna that is his room. Yet again, our search was fruitless. Apparently no one needs fans in the winter. Silly me. We decided to cut our losses and go home. We did walk down the street later to The Christmas store, where Nana bought us each an ornament of our choosing. Please to notice the shoes on my little elf below. The shoes clinched the deal.
The weeknights have been filled with studying and basketball practices and snuggling up when the furnace can't figure out what it wants to do (although for some reason, my kids insist on wearing summer attire at home, no matter if it's 20 below outside). There's our new few-ton (that's the way we say it here) that is broken. Nebraska Furniture Mart will be replacing it on Wednesday.
And here's The Boo, in what looks like the most uncomfortable position ever, finishing up her homework. Let's just pretend those socks look as white as the pure driven snow, k? I'll feel better that way.
Tuesday night at 10:00 p.m., Bubba informed me that he was supposed to attend the football award ceremony thing at school on Wednesday. The Irishman took my car to be fixed Wednesday morning (the seat warmer was ba-roke!), so he picked me up from work. I dropped him back off at work, arrived home late with kids, and waited for Bubba. He got home and we left precisely two minutes later to make it to The Boo's basketball practice. We left basketball practice early, and drove forty minutes to Bubba's school, with not a minute to spare. The organizers of the ceremony foolishly gave the freshmen their numbers first (all 117 of them). See the man to the far left of the picture? When Bubba got to the stage, he said "Nice shoes" to him. He was supposed to be wearing his school shoes. I wanted to tell him "Listen, Buster! It's been so crazy in our world that we're lucky to be here with our underwear on in the inside of our clothes!" Although his enormous feet really do nothing to help him out, do they? After the freshmen received their numbers, Bubba headed up the stairs and out the door. This after "Buster" had practically begged everyone to stay for the whole thing. I felt so guilty, but I squeezed past the other people in my row, and off we ran. It was late! These kids had homework and we hadn't eaten yet. We buzzed through McD's and gobbled our food down in the car, while I drove in silent bliss with a warm bum.
Last night was Christmas on the River here in our little town. We attend every year, and it's so convenient because we just walk down the street to the entertainment. It was so cold last night that we decided not to spend the whole three hours outside, but make our way downtown 15 minutes before the fireworks started. The Christmas on the River fireworks show is the most spectacular display that I've ever seen. It's choreographed to music and is traditionally fifteen to twenty minutes worth of non-stop fireworks. Forty-five minutes before the festival ended, we heard the first shot go off. Crap!!!!! I'm not sure we've ever moved so fast. We threw on coats, pulled up hoods, and flew out the door, looking like criminals running down the street. We made it with plenty of time left of course, we can cover the measly 5 blocks pretty quickly.
After the show was over, we were thankful we hadn't gone down any sooner. The cold, even for the ten minutes we were there, was enough to make us all cranky.
We ran back home, almost as quickly as we ran downtown, to be greeted by our newly decorated house. Thank you Irishman! It's lovely!
This morning, soccer at 7:30. A.M. that is. It was gross.
But we made it, and The Boo played hard, and her team won.
Two basketball games to go today, and then we get to relax.
On a quick side-note, I didn't see Short on Shoes here, so that's a nice little happy moment for me. Hopefully, normal blog activity should be returning to normal around here. Unless I have more of the "Listen, Buster" days. All bets are off if I come across another one of those.
