The Holidays Are Over
And I am thankful. It was so nice to see all of our family and friends, but the three solid days of shopping, wrapping, Christmas-carding, and pie-baking, followed by four days of parties, parties, parties was exhausting.
The Sunday before the Christmas festivities really kicked off, we had Dan, Simona, and Maya over for dinner. She got a new Cookie Monster from me and T (let's be honest:
everyone needs a Cookie Monster). She enjoyed it, but had a time keeping it away from Henry.
I'm still working on her post-Christmas present--a trio of scarves made from yarn Simona and I picked out about three months ago. Yes, I'll make you a scarf, and yes, I will have it ready by your 89th birthday. I'm almost finished with the first of the three, and it's turned out pretty good. Here's a sneak peek before I do the finishing with fringe.
The week was then spent doing the aforementioned shopping, carding, etc., we were ready to really celebrate.
Although we didn't take any pictures on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day with the Bosco-Bux-Bork family (too busy eating? drinking? talking loudly? all three?! and I'm hoping that Mom Bork can send me some of Bosco doing his first Christmas thing), but we have some nice pictures taken by Trevor's Uncle Doug (and one by Trevor) when we went to Doug and Jean's house for brunch the day after Christmas.
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| Great Grandma Madel, Sadie, and Angi--picture by Doug Madel |
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| The post-Christmas brunch--picture by Doug Madel (top right) |
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| Angi, Destiny, Fran and Sadie, and me--pic by T-spoon |
After brunch, we drove out to Batavia to hang out with Pop and Fran Power for some lunch, games, and all around fun.
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| Sadie with her new blue pal, Devin |
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| Grandpop Power and Sadie |
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| He's got a little Capt'n in him |
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| Sadie doesn't like the cut of Trevor's gib, so she's coming to get him |
Now, when Trevor and I found that blue dog for Sadie, we knew that it was a bit old for her, but we figured she'd grow into it. We are so happy, though, that she can totally bounce on him for at least a few seconds before tilting off! Here's more of her enjoying Devin at home.
The Monday after Christmas, Trevor, Henry, and I packed our bags and headed out of town (Henry, though, just layed around like a bum and watched while Trevor and I packed his rubber bones into the suitcase). We drove up to Door County to spend a week and ring in the New Year in cheese head style.
We stayed the week with Jim in his new log cabin--a cabin he built himself, with help from his friend Paul. He finished it about a year ago, but we hadn't been up to see it, so while it's not super new to him anymore, it was new to us. He did a terrific job on it and we truly enjoyed hunkering down in front of a roaring fire for all of the reading, knitting (Henry and I did a lot of knitting, but Trevor didn't), napping, eating, and movie watching we did.
One evening for dinner, we visited Jim's favorite supper club, the Nightingale, and the next night we took in a show at the Sturgeon Bay cineplex.
And
True Grit was pretty bad a**. Not as violent as we thought it would be (the word on the street had me thinking it would be on par with
Kill Bill), but it was just perfectly violent enough for a really dusty, gritty (sorry, it had to be done), gun-filled Western.
Neill and Fran came up on Thursday night to spend the New Year's weekend, and we added "playing board games" to the list of high-octane activities we'd been doing. Here's Trevor posing with some of the games we played--
Wits and Wagers was by far our favorite, so thanks, Mom Bork, for picking that one up!
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| Hmm. That's weird. Pic by Fran Napier |
We also got to see Grandma and Grandpa Madel a few times, which was really nice. The lake view from their house was spectacular and we were so thankful not to be a part of the
Polar Bear Club that was taking a yearly jump into Lake Michigan on New Year's Day.
We also have some nice pictures from our NYE dinner at the
Log Den (where the food was good but the service left a lot to be desired), and Fran's going to e-mail them to me tomorrow, so look for that good stuff.
And now we're home. Our laundry has been done, our larder has been re-stocked, Trevor has gone back to work, and Henry has been sleeping off the vacation for the past 72 hours. I don't return to campus until January 12 (my first 2011 meeting, and even though it's only going to be about an hour, I'll be officially back) so this week I've got to finish my syllabus (
no, I haven't finished, and
yes, I'm a month late, and
no, I don't want to hear any proverbs about procrastination), get my hair cut, meet my friend Kate for lunch in Kenosha, meet Mom for lunch, meet Paula and Bosco for lunch (Paula, I'll be calling you tomorrow), meet my friend Angie for lunch, finish Maya's scarf, Adam's scarf, and Gabe's new hat, finish the two Brock and Kolla mysteries that just came today in the mail (and the other five new books I got for Christmas [and the two books I got in Door County]), get my eyes checked and my teeth cleaned, and use my Christmas present from Trevor, a Swedish massage (!). And I should probably prep for my first week of classes, too. Oh, blah.
Look for a few more posts while I procrastinate finishing my syllabi tomorrow!
