Dinner Date

Guess where mom wanted to go for her birthday dinner this year????
Red Lobster! I know, you never would have guessed it!

Since it was a birthday dinner or course there were gifts.
Lovely sweaters. A burgundy cardigan and a purple long sleeve shirt.
This is the birthday girl getting chastised by the paparazzi for moving too much during the photo. Geesh!

I know you can't tell that well, but I got a haircut today. It's short and sassy. Meow!
I might actually be shorter then Chris'. No comment. When we got home after dinner we did our photo shoot for this years Christmas card. It's even cooler then last year. Start being on the lookout in your mailbox!

Family Fun Night

We finally got off our duffs and joined our neighbors in holiday decorations. It's the same thing we did last year, but that's because we left the nails in the wall of the garage.
Isn't it pretty?

We didn't have any big plans tonight so after we had our dinner (homemade turkey meatloaf, asparagus and corn) we had a rematch of Scrabble. Last time I tricked Chris into playing he gave me the smack down. This game was toe to toe.
Officially he won, but only because I was a good sport and helped him use his last letters for the maximum points.

Tomorrow night is my Christmas bunko. It's up by where I used to live (on Hollywood and Vine). Then Wednesday night I have to stay late for a union meeting and then I have bible study Thursday after work. Friday night we're taking the birthday Mamacita out to Red Lobster (surprise, surprise) and then Saturday night we have a Christmas party for one of Chris' customers. Phew, that's a busy week!

It's a balmy 41 degrees outside which is perfect walking weather. Thank God for wool coats and scarves. After our walk it's time to hit the gym (at 9:30)! Who has time for kids with a schedule like that?!

Crafty Loot

I finally remembered to stop by the Paradise Scrapbook Boutique today. I love the stuff they carry. It's a lot of 7 Gypsies and Maya Road merchandise. Of course they had the dinosaur paper I wanted so bad I had to have it transported across state lines. Curses! I managed to stop myself before I got too out of control, but here's what I found that I just had to have:
Not that I have any plans to do any scrapbooking this weekend. Last weekend I finished my Thanksgiving pages, but I haven't figured out a layout yet for my Portland photos.
It's out of my Page Maps book. I know if I don't fess up, Jessica will rat me out.

Tonight is the downtown Christmas tree lighting, but Captain Scrooge already said 'no'. Surprise, surprise since the downtown preview went so well...

Speaking of Scrooge, he should be home shortly at which time we shall head off on foot to Burger Hut (up at the corner of Cohasset & Lassen) to meet the 'rents for dinner. Neighborhood Special for me (burger and fries). Good thing we're walking!

B.S. Night

Thursday is B.S. (bible study) night for me. It was my week to host so I had the crew of four other ladies over for dinner and a little yakking about J.C. I had a conference in Chico today that got over at 3:00 pm so I was able to get dinner ready in plenty of time and there was no last minute rushing. Actually I had found a crock pot lasagna recipe in one of Mum's cookbooks that I had scribbled down to try and it came out fantastic. When I got home all I had to do was put the salad together and make some Zella bread. I used Mom's free Marie Callendar's pie coupon for our dessert. I picked out a double cream lemon pie. Yum yum.

The excitement of the evening wasn't my lasagna or magical pie, but rather the 'rents hand-me-down table. Everyone was in love with it and fascinated by the expandable leafs. Then everyone wanted to sit in my chair because it was one of two at the table that were the 'rents, too. They have a padded cushion and a curved back and they thought it was so comfortable and have requested that the 'rents give us their other four.

Speaking of the 'rents, apparently we're going to Burger Hut for dinner with them tomorrow. They had asked us a week or two ago where a good burger place was and that was the best we could think of in Chico. Paradise actually has the best places (Barney's & Izzy's), but anyway I guess they have a hankering for a meaty flesh on a bun and good company.

As a total surprise, the 'rents bought us a year subscription to Netflix. It's the basic service of one movie at a time and only two a month, but in combination with how often we go to the movie theater it's perfect. We still have four movies left to watch from our free trial and then we can start ordering from our subscription. I think we're in line for Wall-E and Hancock. After that I think we're all out of ideas.

You know who called and left me a message yesterday?? Zella. Besides her telling me numerous times that she still loves me and misses me she said that at the end of the year they're closing the restaurant. They're going out of business. No other info as to what's going to happen now since they sold off the majority of their catering stuff, but I'm definitely going to call her back and find out. Yowzers!

Look who's ready for Christmas

I spent the better part of today getting the Christmas tree and decorations out. I've been hoarding presents in my craft closet for a couple of months now and wanted desperately to put them under a tree. At least I did until I sat down to wrap them all. Wrapping sucks. Curses to anyone who's gift wasn't a neat square or rectangle shape.
I'm so festive.

Chris spent today out in the garage with Mr. A. Something to do with the new race car engine. That's about as technical as I understand. Or care.

We're getting ready to have yet another round of leftovers for dinner. Then we're going to try to go to Barnes & Noble. I don't think it'll be that busy there. It's not like they do some kind of crazy Black Friday sale. Nobody likes books that much.

Tomorrow we're making plans to go to the first showing of Bond in the morning. Then Chris will meet back up with Mr. A. again to do some more engine magic. Woo hoo. Exciting, I know. We still have one more Netflix movie to watch. Doomsday, I think. We watched Smart People last night (Dennis Quade and Sarah Jessica Parker) and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead the night before. I wanted to see Wall-E, but it won't be available before our free trial ends. Bah!

Alright, time to go nuke some ham and taters!

Turkey Day Success

Stress free Thanksgivings are wonderful. Since we only had to make half the dishes there was no scrambling to fit everything in the oven at once or have all four burners going at the same time. We started cooking at 2:30 (for a 3:30 eat time). We did ham, turkey breast, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and rolls. Mum brought sourdough and artichoke stuffing, brandy soaked cranberry relish and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream.

Chris was in charge of the meats, while I took care of the sides.

Everything came out delicious. Of course both of us were drinking heavily so we probably would have thought gummy bears covered in gravy was delicious.
Enjoying our new table from the rents.

Mmmm....lots of warm gooey food. So good. After dinner we rolled ourselves over to the couch and watched some football and a taped episode of Frontline (liberal news stories on PBS). Then Mum cut us up some monster pieces of pie with her homemade whipped cream (my offer of cool whip was denied) to go with some fresh hot coffee. Then we kicked them out. Our hospitality only goes so far.

Once this ball of lead food empties out of my stomach we're going on a walk. Really we need to do about 10 of our walks to even begin to counteract all the damage we did today. I wouldn't want to hurt anybody's feeling though by not having at least two servings of their dish, right?

T minus 6 hours

Let the turkey day extravaganza begin! Or at least my portion; Chris is still sleeping. It's almost 9:30 am and we still need to clean house before the 'rents come over this afternoon. It's not too bad, just need to vacuum, sweep and clean my bathroom. Before anything happens though, I need food and coffee.
We're having breakfast burritos today. Turkey bacon, eggs beaters and ff cheese. Mmm....

Oh! The coffee pot just beeped that it's done. Must...go...get.....a mug....of...brain...fuel...