Recipe for a Great Holiday Week

12/23/08

• 3pm - parents arrive to begin the holidays
• 4pm - Mom and Dad unload baked goods and presents
• 7pm - eat dinner with parents, Shane & Julie come over for dessert (Shane ate all left overs)

12/24/08

• Mom, Dad and I snuck away in the am for some quick, last minute, Target Shopping
• Mom made pecan pies while I worked. Steve and Dad hung new shades in our study
• I made a couple of Christmas Eve soups during lunch
• 5pm - Mom, Dad, Shane, Julie, Steve and I went to Lisa & Jeremiah's house for snacks, fresh bread, and those soups made at lunch time. There was homemade egg nog and a variety of delicous cookies too.
• 7pm - Watched Kate and Sarah open gifts from my folks. Oh how cute it was.7:30pm - Kate and Sarah put cookies out for Santa and feed the reindeer and kiss everyone good night
• We hung out a while visiting. I think that is when we ate more cookies. We then went home to bed.
• 12/25/2008

• Shane and Julie joined us for baked blueberry french toast. Yum! We also had mimosas and coffee. We hung out after brunch and listened to music and talked. Very relaxing.
• Shane and Julie went home to drop off Tanner. We prepped for dinner.
• 4pm - Siblings began to arrive along with their offspring. Shane brought Wii for our fun and games.
• 5-6pm sometime around this time we sat down for dinner. My chickens did not get cooked, but we had ham.
• 7pm open presents and general merriment. Sometime in their we cleaned up the dishes - very quickly I might add. This was impressive given that we used the china and washed everything by hand.
• 8pm ?? We played Wii, including American Idol. Very funny.

12/26/200

• It's my birthday. It's my birthday. We went to the new Thumbs Up for breakfast. Yeah. We are so happy to have Thumbs Up back in down town Decatur.
• Prepped for the evenings festivities. Steve started on the smoked butt and Dad started the Brunswick Stew.
• Margaret and Catherine brought over a present for me. It was a very cute picture of them.
• 4pm again my siblings arrived and brought their offspring. There was more Wii playing.
• 4:30pm Our neighbors John, Deb and Analese walked by and we invited them to dinner. If you saw the amount of food we had for dinner you would understand why we were inviting people off the street.
• We ate and ate and ate. I opened presents. We had fresh coconut cake that Mom made for my birthday.
• We played Wii, alot. Steve and I stayed up until 1:30am playing Wii.

12/27/2008

• Woke up with sore muscles from playing Wii.
• Went shopping with birthday money. Bought some stuff, but looked mostly.
• Rented action packed movies to watch on our new TV. Watched one.
• Took a walk with Lisa, Jeremiah, Ed, Kate and Sarah to the Kirkwood coffee shop for hot chocolate. All the dogs went with us as well. Walked back and decided to meet for pizza at Lisa and Jeremiah's
• Ate pizza, visited.
• Came back home and stayed up watching action movies.

12/28/2008

• Began tailgating with Shane at 9am (his idea, it was raining). It was fun.
• 1pm met Steve and Ed in the Dome to watch the Falcons beat the Rams. Had the Saints beat the Panthers we would have won our division. Shane dressed up as a "saint" for the occasion. It looked like it was going to happen, but at the last minute the Panthers won. Fortunately, the Falcons played poorly enough that it was a good game.
• 5pm back home, watching action movies.

12/29/2008

• Back to work. It is somewhat a slow day.
• We had a great dinner with Lisa for her birthday. It was followed by some great cupcakes too.
• The girls were on this evening. Will they always be this cute?

12/30/2008

• After all the food and merriment I attempted to go for a run. It was tough. I also threw in a little yoga. It was tougher. Where is my muscle memory? Did I leave it in London?
• Yes, I worked today.
• With all my success in re-entering the exercise realm, we decided to go out to eat at Mezcalitos. This is our favorite little place to eat.

12/31/2008

• I am working today.
• Tonight we will bring in the New Year with our dearest friends. Jennifer and Rusty have invited us all to dinner at their home.
• I really hope this will mark the beginning of eating like a normal person again.