Last post of 2019

New decade, new goals, new travels - looking forward to 2020! This is my last hurrah post of 2019, a year that gets mixed reviews in our family history book. We went out on a bang tonight with a Texas Longhorns win in our local bowl game. Thanks to some great seats, we enjoyed watching the Horns whip up on the Utes. A cousin of mine and his son even got to join us since they're B-I-G ol' UT fans. 

We wish all of our family and friends good health and God's blessings on their endeavors. I'll catch y'all in '20 once I get the college freshman shuffled back to campus for spring semester next week!

It's a dog's life

Today the family spent the morning helping me bubble wrap and pack up Christmas, moving my bins full of Santas out to the workshop for storage until next November. I've got the house back to its usual decor and mostly clean. Which is convenient since my cleaning lady comes tomorrow to do the rest of the de-glittering of most household surfaces. We've eaten high calorie leftovers until we're about sick of them and wheeled our two large garbage cans to the curb to be emptied tomorrow on the holiday schedule. 

The dogs continue to be a source of entertainment since our older daughter's chorkie Dewey joined as a temporary member of the pack. He has become very interested in our female Cairn Pepper lately, if you know what I mean, so it's about time to make an appointment at the vet to have him neutered in the new year.

 

Holly Jolly

Yesterday we attended a friend's Christmas open house. The dining room is always amazing, the table filled with a feast of sweets. 

This morning I took a rather stinky Ollie and Pepper to the groomer for a pre-Christmas Eve bath and they came home looking very festive.

Los Spurs

They've definitely had better seasons and W-L records, but it's always fun at a Spurs game. And my favorite time of year to go is Christmas. This was ladies night for the six of us, with all of our girls enjoying a break from college. 

You gotta love the baby races, especially when they're in costume!

Holiday run-up

It's a week before Christmas Eve and I've been busy crossing things off my to-do list. Menu finalized - check! Big grocery run - check! Gift cash in cards for nieces/nephews - check! We kicked off semester break in a decidedly un-fun way for the younger daughter since she had to get all four wisdom teeth removed at the oral surgeon's yesterday. Tonight the husband and I volunteered at his company's headquarters for a sweet holiday meal they serve to elderly folks chauffeured in from a couple local nursing homes. We haven't taken a ride in the car to view Christmas lights yet, or watched "Christmas Vacation" all the way through, but I haven't forgotten about these family traditions. Once I get past a final holiday party commitment with the husband tomorrow evening, then we'll be home free to focus on prepping, cooking and just enjoying the final run-up to us hosting Christmas Eve and Day. Bring on the holiday cheer, y'all!

Over the river and down the interstate

Both chicks are back in the nest tonight after wrapping up finals... the youngest her first semester in college, and the oldest her last semester of grad school. I flew to NC to help the older chick do a final apartment clean out and pack of the car so we could hit the road to Texas. We drove a little over 1300 miles in two days, and boy were we glad to see home yesterday afternoon around 5:30. 

We passed and/or sat behind waaay too many of these big rigs on Interstates 40 to 85 to 65 to 10 as we trekked through seven states in 48 hours.

We had Dewey riding shotgun, the daughter's five month old chorkie baby. In his Christmas sweater all curled up like he was a cinnamon roll. Or practicing yoga poses.

Once we got through the morass that is Houston traffic (on any given day), we stopped at the ever-popular Buc-ee's for gas, snacks and a bathroom break, dog included. While we were in their lovely store perusing the selection, we spied the Buc-ee's Beaver dressed as Santa. And y'all know how much I love St Nick.   It's going to be a very merry holiday around here with us reunited as a family of four, and hosting Christmas Eve and Day for our entire extended family plus some good friends!

Thanksgiving Miscellaneous

Now that I've started working on our Christmas Eve and Day menus, I need to wrap up Thanksgiving with a final post. We enjoyed dining at several different places in Asheville before we put on the feedbag for Thanksgiving. Sugar was top of our list!

We enjoyed pie flights at a local bakery... and beer at a historic pub!

While checking out the shops and eateries in downtown Asheville...

we spied these attached to the sides of some buildings.

On Turkey Day, we chose to whip up our own dinner, enjoying the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV where we saw one of the high school bands from our Texas hometown marching. And then we officially kicked off Christmas that afternoon by watching The Holiday after gorging ourselves into food comas.

The pic above and below are significant, mainly because we all LOVED the layout of the kitchen area. It had a large island, adjacent sitting area AND television mounted on the wall so we could all cook, sit, visit and watch the parade, game, etc. It was all very handy and the girls have declared this arrangement a must for our lake house.

Views for miles

Last week, we enjoyed lots of lovely views in North Carolina. It was past the time for peak fall foliage, but a few trees still had their red and orange leaves. Mostly, though, a lot of the views were just denuded branches. We also appreciated all of the lovely sunsets at our historic inn, as well as VRBO rental home.

We've got lights

We're all lit up for the month of December, as of yesterday. The gate lights and wreath are relatively goof proof, so the husband and I knocked that out in about an hour. We had the pros wrap the trees, a team of four that took almost three hours. It's money well spent since this truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

Thanksgiving 2019

The husband and I kicked off Thanksgiving week with a flight to Charlotte so we could hustle over to spend the holiday in Asheville with our Carolinas college girls. Our first couple days were spent at the historic Omni Grove Park Inn. As luck would have it, the week before it had hosted the annual National Gingerbread Competition, so we got to enjoy all of these amazing creations on display.

Some were structures, as seen above, but the ones below were a bit more fanciful. The one with the gator was the adult grand prize winner.

Below you'll see a sampling of other critters used in various scenes.

Gingerbread artists ranged in age from kindergarten to retirees. I was incredibly impressed by the range of skills, most of which I couldn't replicate for a million bucks. Here are some pics of other miscellaneous creations I really liked.

Y'all know how much I adore Santa! And I absolutely loved the Gypsy caravan below. The detail was truly amazing.

The inn was already decorated for Christmas. There were lots of decorated trees scattered everywhere. My favorite nibble was the (all) homemade pretzel with beer cheese fondue and spicy mustard honey butter at a casual restaurant on the premises - delicious!

I think my most memorable part of our stay there was when I snuggled up in a rocking chair in front of one of the monstrous fireplaces in the inn's huge entry/gathering area and just relaxed for about 30 minutes.