Poe....New pictures

I had to put some new pictures of Poe up. She is so cute, and she is loving her Christmas! Barry took a picture of her not too long ago, and she looks just like Puss in Boots from Shrek. We love it!

channeling Puss in Boots!

Playing Enjoying the fire

Christmas Cat!

Christmas 1 of 4

Last night we had our first Christmas with Mylène and Jef. We made a delicious dinner that included turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mixed vegetables, blueberry jello, brioche, mousse au chocolat, vin chaud, magic squares, javex balls, chocolate chip cookies, salmon ball, cookies from France, ginger bread from France….(you get the idea. We had TONS of food!)

While Barry was at work, Mylène, Jef and I worked on preparing the festivities. We had delicious smells and festive music all day long, after our Christmas shopping trip in the morning. At the mall, I finished all of our Christmas shopping, but I’m sure we will have to head out for a few more small things today or tomorrow.

When Barry got home, we sat down to dinner (which I served 10 minutes earlier than expected!), and then we opened gifts. Barry and I bought Mylène a bunch of scrapbooking stuff so she could remember her trip to Canada, and we bought Jef a Montreal Canadiens scarf and Toronto Maple Leafs snow globe. In turn, they gave us so much stuff! We got a bowl, mugs, a CD recording of the orchestra that Mylène and Jef play in (Orcheste Symponique des Jeunes de Strasbourg), a tea towel and tons of European chocolate, I got a new wallet, and Barry got a cool wind up toy, which he loved so much he couldn’t even focus on any other gifts! (and Poe loved it too!)

Our last gifts were hilarious though. Mylène and Jef bought these books for us when they went to Niagara Falls/Niagara on the Lake on Tuesday. Barry got a book called: “Do you know your Bride?” and I got one called: “Do you know your Groom?” They are awesome! The book is a quiz, and we are supposed to complete the quiz on each other and then compare answers. We had a lot of fun looking through the books until we went to bed.

It was an amazing night, and a great way to kick of Christmas! Barry and I are so happy that Mylène and Jef were here to celebrate our first Christmas dinner in our house, since last year we didn’t do one. We are so lucky that Mylène found our ad in the off-campus housing site last summer, she is an amazing roommate. In Mylène and Jef, we have found friends for life!

It has been far too long since I posted on here, so I thought I would do a nice big post while I'm waiting for my Christmas dinner to cook. Mylène, Jef, Barry and I are having a Christmas celebration tonight. We are having turkey with all the trimmings, and exchanging gifts. The turkey is in the oven, it will be ready in about 30 minutes or so, and everything else is ready to go! We’re just waiting for Barry to get home from work.

We have done a lot of fun things so far this Christmas season…

First, two weeks ago (December 7 – Leslie’s Birthday), Barry, Mylène and I went over to Mark and Nancy’s for some Settlers and some drinking. I was celebrating the end of term, since I had just finished my last essay that day. Needless to say, us ladies got a little intoxicated, although I was by far the worst off. I won’t go into any details, lets just say I had to spend the night and had a rough ride home the next day.

I started to feel better when we went out on Saturday (December 8) to look for our Christmas tree. This was very special, since it was Barry’s first Christmas tree on his own, and our first one together. We cut it down ourselves, saving about $70 by doing so. Then we brought it home and put it in the stand. We promptly left for London after that, to decorate my parents’ tree.

Mylène came with us to my parents’ house to decorate, and was introduced to our crazy, disco tree. This year we managed to put over 1000 lights on the tree, something my dad and I were quite proud of! It was a lot of fun…Kacee and Taylor were super excited to decorate the tree, and they did a great job!

The next day (Sunday, December 9), we went to Barry’s Dad’s house for a light lunch and to hear about his trip to Cuba the previous week. Mylène and Roger spoke French, which was very cool, and I was able to understand quite a bit. Then we came home and decorated our own tree. Poe went crazy! She had to be locked in the basement while we strung the lights so she wouldn’t eat them. We had bought some cool glasses to look at the tree, and what we saw through them was totally amazing!!! Check out the video below to see what we saw! (The video is sideways, because blogger wouldn't let me rotate it. But you get the idea...)

Barry left for Mexico and Dallas on Monday (December 10), and Mylène left for Chicago on Tuesday (December 11). That meant that I had the house all to myself, and I took advantage of it! I sat around and did almost nothing, but I did manage to get some Christmas presents wrapped and under the tree. I cleaned up a little bit, and did some laundry, and enjoyed the first part of my vacation! Below: Some pictures of Barry leaving in his limo!

Barry came home on Thursday, and Mylène on Friday, and then on Saturday (December 15), we went to London to celebrate my mom’s 50^th Birthday. Amy, Leslie and I had been working on putting this party together for a few weeks, and it went really well. Debbie even made a surprise visit, having made the trip just for my mom’s birthday. Leslie and I put together a video and I painted a sign with help from Mylène. Amy took care of the food, and had a great spread for everyone there. Unfortunately, the weather wreaked havoc on our party, and some people (including Leslie) weren’t able to make it. L The video Leslie and I made is below, along with some pictures of the decorations Amy, Taylor, Robin and I put up. And remember those crazy glasses? Barry and I took them to my parents' house for the party. Needless to say, they were the hit of the event, even before we were drinking. Everyone tried them on!

On Sunday (December 16), Barry and I were snowed in in London. We tried to make it home, but only got as far as Dorchester before we had to turn back. So, we went to A&P and got some groceries and headed back to my parents’ house. We had a relaxing evening just sitting around, and then headed back first thing on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, Mylène’s boyfriend Jef had arrived on Saturday, and the two of them had to deal with all the snow on Sunday without us. They are from France, and not used to so much snow! Jef told Barry that it was his first and LAST time shoveling so much snow! But he did a really good job clearing out the driveway, and we were able to park both vehicles. I guess the snow storm was a nice welcome for Jef!

Tuesday morning brought another departure: Barry had to return to Dallas for another business trip. He left at 5:45 am. Because he had to leave so early, and would be gone for two days, we had stayed out until 10:00 the night before and done some major Christmas shopping. We also stayed up until after midnight, wrapping presents. We were both quite tired when it was time for Barry to leave, but luckily, I was able to go back to bed. Barry had a full morning of traveling and then work after that. Poor guy!

So, I hung out with Mylène and Jef, and then I got sick on Wednesday. I woke up in the morning with a migraine, and then had a cough and stuffed up nose all day. I’m still feeling kind of yucky now, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. Even though I was feeling gross though, I had to get some Christmas baking done, and I did. Barry came home at about 11:00 or so, and I had just finished making magic squares.

Then this morning, we had to start getting ready for our Christmas celebration tonight! Barry went to work, but Mylène, Jef and I went to the mall after I had made a salmon ball for later. We stayed out for a few hours, then came home and I put the turkey in the oven. Mylène is making “Mousse au chocolat,” “brioche,” and “vin chaud.”YUM. I’m making turkey, stuffing, potatoes, veggies and some goodies, along with salmon ball. We have so much food!

I’ve already taken some pictures of our food for tonight…I’ll do another post tomorrow about them!