Holiday Recap

Better late than never, right? I've just realized that I meant to get caught up on my posting from the Christmas season, but what with the engagement and all the hub-bub I almost forgot! But I'm here now and that's what counts right?

I worked the first week I was home visiting, but of course still managed to find fun stuff to do in the evenings. The weather really foiled a lot of plans, but I was still able to get almost all of my visiting in and still had a great time.

One evening three of my girlfriends (Kickboxing girls!!) had planned to go to Butchart Gardens for the Christmas display and a yummy dinner...but the snow was so bad that they actually closed the highway for a bit so we opted to stay in the city (Butchart is out in the boonies). We hit up one of our favorite Italian restaurants and had a great visit....even if our meals for some reason were only mediocre...weird. Our waiter got a good laugh at us all making sure we got our pictures with each other...and even offered to take one of all four of us.






This is pretty much how I had to dress every time I headed outside. Each day I did it to get my coffee fix though!

On the weekend my girlfriend threw her 4th Annual Gingerbread House party. Love it. I would have been sooo sad if I'd missed out but she made sure to plan it while I was home on vacay. What a girl. I stayed in Victoria a day longer than I might have had there been no house to build, but I wanted my house dammit. :)

Worked out perfectly since Saturday night there was a big blizzard and the weather on the Sunday was almost blizzard-like so I would have likely had some serious trouble getting up island anyway. Instead I was able to catch a ride with my hostess and her honey on the Monday, and the roads were lovely and clear for us (until we were about 20 minutes outside of our hometown and there was a crazy long detour due to a bad car accident). It was an adventure, and the view on top of the Malahat highway was incredible. It's not often at all that I've seen the Malahat covered in fresh, beautiful snow.

I took a few pictures of the snow at my Mom's just to show the insanity. This is Nanaimo people! Beautiful Vancouver Island where we rarely got much of a Winter, let alone ANY snow when I was growing up. And this year it just started dumped and is still really showing no signs of stopping. There was about four feet while I was there (and Mom told me that they just had another dump the other day that was so bad she couldn't get her car up her street for two days). I didn't realize that I was travelling all the way from Halifax in order to have to shovel my Mom's driveway. Nutters I tell you.

Oh, and this big bugger was built by our friend's adult son while he was visiting her....

Christmas this year was just the immediate family, and honestly at first I thought it would a bit weird and maybe boring. But it was fantastic! In fact, best Christmas we've had in years. None of my Mom's foster kids, no uncle's girlfriends, no extras...just us. Nice. Maybe we all felt a little closer because my Grandpa is showing signs of dementia recently and we were all glad to have him home, or maybe we're all just finally growing up! Even my younger cousins are both teenagers now and it's nice to have them be a part of the "adults" instead of the little kids just causing a ruckus. Any way you look at it, it was a really nice year.

It was a whirlwind of a trip and I'm glad for the downtime I got with my Mom over week I spent with her. There's something to be said for a couple of lazy, quiet days hanging out with my Mom. :)

I went back to Victoria for one night before my flight, and as much as I had grand intentions of trying to see everyone again before heading out I chose to enjoy a quiet night in just visiting with a bestest girlfriend again. It was what I needed after all of the activity. Next year I won't for as long, even if I have to suck it up and pay extra for my flights. 16 days was just too long to live out of a suitcase and rely on friends and family for rides. I guess these are the things you learn when you move away from home and have to start doing the visits...know your limitations!!

Having said that, I already miss everyone! Thanks to everyone that put up with me and helped me out. See you again next Christmas!!

Tis the Season to be Starbucked?

To keep up with the "corporate whoring" at Christmas I picked up a new Starbucks Christmas tree ornament today. There are two new ones...so I'm sure I'll be picking up the other one any day now! (and yes I know I shouldn't be buying myself these things this close to Christmas, but I can't risk the chance that no one will buy them for me and then they'll be sold out!)

Today's newbie:

Today's newbie on the tree:

Ornaments from years past on our tree this year:

The snow globe one really must be protected by the miracle of the corporate whore because all of my other snow globes were broken when we moved across the country (too cold, liquids froze and busted the glass) but it was the only one to survive the trip!

Holiday Time

There is always so much last minute stuff to get done before a trip, and I'm realizing that there is even more when you have to travel home for Christmas! My to-do list is going to keep me busy all day tomorrow...good thing I have to get up to take DBF to the airport for the crack of dawn anyway. I'll have time to pump myself full of coffee and then get to it....before a good night's sleep so I can catch my crack of dawn flight on Sunday.

DBF is off to Winnipeg to see his little boy for Christmas. His little man actually turns 5...time flies...a few days before Christmas so he gets to a lot of celebrating. It's a bit rough that we don't spend Christmas Day together, but I can only imagine that the smile on his boy's face while tearing through prezzies on Christmas morning makes it all undeniably worthwhile.

I will be heading home to Victoria and Nanaimo to see my lovely friends and family. Spending the first week in Victoria catching up with friends (and still working via laptop!), then up to Nanaimo to Mom's house through Christmas, with one last day in Victoria before my return flight home.

DBF and I are both flying home on the 29th. We make an effort to spend New Year's Eve together since Christmas is a toughy logistically. I have a red-eye flight so don't actually get home until the morning of the 30th, but the time difference buggers me up anyway so I'm going to be tired no matter what.

The great part is that we get an "extra Christmas" when we get home. Since we don't have Christmas Day together, we get to exchange gifties and carry on the Christmas festivities for ourselves. Who doesn't love an extended Christmas?!

Oh Christmas Tree

DBF got home on Friday...finally! Yaaaaieeeee!

I had waited for him to return so we could decorate our Christmas tree as this is one of his favorite Christmas traditions. We decided to buy a bunch of new decorations this year so we'd have something to call "ours", as opposed to "his stuff" and "her stuff" mashed together trying to make a semblence of something cohesive. So Saturday morning we set out to do just that...get our new decorations.

Thankfully it wasn't near as painful as we thought it might be. You know, shopping on one of the busiest shopping days of the year...with a hundred bazillion other people...after the shelves had already been seriously picked through. Not so bad, really. Whew.

We brought home our loot and decided to wait until it started to get dark before embarking on the actual decorating. DBF put together a CD of holiday tunes while I sifted through our existing ornaments to see what we could still use. Turns out a lot more of his stuff matched our new theme and a lot of mine was mismatched from too many years of collecting a lot of crap. In the end, I even ended up deciding that even though it was my turn to put my angel topper on the tree his Santa looked better. She's too silvery for the gold and red theme, so instead she earned herself a spot as a tabletop decoration.

DBF took on the task of putting the tree together (I helped fluff!) and stringing the lights (the most monotonous part) before it got dark in the room. Oh, I put on the beaded garland though (with some help as I got tangled around the base...lol). Then we put on our festive tunes, poured some wine and got to decorating. We were worried that we might not have enough new stuff, but with our new red bows the tree filled out nicely. (Now, if only my camera took decent night time shots...booo to the blurry!)

Merry...um...Birthday?

They say it's your birthday....da da da da da da da...Well it's my birthday too, ya!!

So, being that DBF is away and my party plans aren't until tonight, I decided to just treat this like any other Saturday. I already did most of my chores last night, and already bought the majority of the groceries I need...so it is my day to just chill. Of course, I decided that I needed to start my day with a trip to Starbucks...one birthday latte pour moi coming up!

But to what do my wondering eyes appear?...Yup, it's that time. Christmas has arrived at Starbucks. Tra la la la la, la la la la. Red and green everywhere. Peppermint Mochas, Gingerbread Lattes, Cranberry Bliss Bars, Christmas Blend coffee....and the best thing of all...the Eggnog Latte!

Now normally I don't do Christmas before December...and especially not before my birthday. But what was I to do? I was surrounded. And I have to tell you that these East Coasters sure catch the Christmas Spirit early....folks started putting up their lights the day after they composted their jack-o-lanterns. I thought they were a bit nutty, but I guess that's what you do when you live in the land of snow and ice...gotta get it done before the flakes fly. So this year, in the spirit of now being an East Coaster, I decided that it was OK to have a birthday Eggnog Latte. :)

Afterwards I wandered through Chapters eager to buy myself a birthday present, but nothing really caught my eye. I have a stack of books here at home to get through and I didn't really see the need for the $90 Twilight box set just yet. So instead I carried on with my errands.

Well, happy Christmas to me. er, I mean Merry Birthday! um. hmmm. Well, whatever. My birthday gift to myself ended up being new LED warm white lights and pine garlands for our front porch (remember this is our first Christmas season in this house). I also picked up Christmas cards because I might as well start now as it will take me a couple of weeks to get them all done! After that I went to Costco, where I got us this crazy huge lighted wreath for our garage door. Love it.

Oh, and I did get myself a real birthday giftie after all....Rachel Ray's Big Orange Book and this month's Rachel Ray Everyday magazine. Yes, I'm a corporate whore (she's just cheaper than Starbucks and LuluLemon).