We woke up the next day pretty early at 8:30/9 after about 4ish hours of sleep. We drove to Sagnasty Hospital and saw my sister and my little Mustache Man. Took some sweet pics with the little man and then we were on our way back down to see Joe's family. We hung out with them for the next few days until Christmas Eve afternoon. We met new girlfriends named K. (whom we like a lot!), watched tv, played games, played with the nephews Eli Jim & Ziggy (SO glad people took up this nickname that I gave last year-it's awesome!), slept on the queen sized air mattress with foam topper (pretty comfy), dealt with Zeb hating the nephews & worked on getting Eli Jim comfy with the pups by feeding Colonel treats [whom Eli called "the bwown one" which was SO cute], we cooked a little and ate a lot, drank tons of Vernors and some wine, and just enjoyed the company. All in all it was really lovely.
We drove to my folks' place Xmas Eve afternoon and ate dinner with everyone & after went to my brother J's house and hung out with him. There is a tiff in my immediate family right now with my brother J., my sister S. & her husband and my folks. It stems from the fistfight my brothers J. & M. had with each other at my sister S.'s wedding. It's still not resolved so he wasn't going to be at the Xmas celebration the next day so I wanted to be sure to spend some quality time with him. Joe & I had a blast just hanging out and drinking some beers and J. seemed to like his Xmas gifts from us. After we went over to my pal from high school parent's house. It was so nice to see her and her family. Though we were very late (12am) and I felt super bad about that. I loved seeing Ashley as she lives on the other side of the US and we don't get to hang out very often. Christmas was nice-loads of gifts for baby Mustache! Loads of food too! Joe & I received so many lovely gifts from both our families this past Xmas: new Scanpan for Joe [he is SO excited], a Food Network brand pasta pot with strainer, clothes for Joe, gift cards to Best Buy & Victoria's Secret & Barnes and Noble, loads of little kitchen accessories, cook books, pictures, nice bottles of wine, a compact, a down alternative king size comforter, and loads more. The next day all us gals went after Xmas shopping to hit up the deals and use all our gift cards.
Let's just say by the time this shopping was done Joe & I had to buy vacuum seal storage bags to fit everything into our car for the drive back! We then mostly hung out and kept things pretty chill other than a Girls Lunch at Cafe Zinc in my hometown, my Aunt & Uncle and her daughter & husband and their 5 little boys coming down to hang out [which was so much fun], driving up to see my grandparents which was lovely, driving to my cousin Beth's 2 girls' bday celebrations and seeing them sing and dance to gangham style (RIDICULOUS!), New Years hang outs with Joe's sibling L. & his gf K. and hanging with my pal from high school Ben-the-Wen-Hen, hanging with my brother M. and his girlfriend Taco down at their place the night before we left Michigan, and one last breakfast with my brother J. before we left to drive back to OKC to LA.
We had a really lovely time back in MI and got to see so many of our family and friends. There were SO many more we wish we could have spent time with too. It always feels like there is not enough time! I can say that for the most part too there were very few "debates" [a.k.a. heated discussions/arguments] with anyone on either sides of our families so that was great. We cannot wait to be back in October for our big wedding celebration-it should be a blast! :D
So now we're caught up on holiday time and we can move on to what's been happening more recently. Get ready for this next post it's a doozy! Lots of love dear chickens!
