Today is Grandma Amy’s birthday and we’re fortunate enough to be able to celebrate with her in person. She was kind enough to stick around with us an extra week due to my work trip to Toronto tomorrow morning. As with all of her visits, we tend to get a lot done around the house, and this trip has been no exception. I can’t believe how much better the bedrooms are looking, as well as the whole house overall.
I kept busy this morning doing some touch-up painting in various rooms around the house, as well as getting the curtains in Enzo’s room secured. If you’ve ever been to our house you know that practically every wall is a different color, which is something that Jessica hates, but so far we’ve just dealt with it. When we moved in there were tons of different cans of paint in the garage, but they’re not all labeled so figuring out which wall they each go with has been a bit of a challenge. Since the guest bedroom needed some touching up, and I was in full-on ‘painting mode’ this morning, I decided to add that to my list of duties. I thought I had the right shade of green picked out from the garage, but as it turned out I didn’t. After touching up various spots and letting it dry I came to the unfortunate realization that I now need to re-paint the entire room. Lovely. Luckily the guest bedroom was the only room where I accidentally applied the wrong paint. The rest of the rooms look really nice, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Since I kept busy with house projects this morning I was more than fine with relaxing this afternoon and watching football. Amy, Jessica, and Ava spent the day out and about shopping, making/painting pottery, and going out to lunch, while Elise and I relaxed and watched the Seahawks beat the Eagles. The girls will be home soon, but only momentarily so they can drop Ava off with me, then they’re heading back out to meet Laurel at the movie theater and see ‘Gone Girl.’ I’m just glad to be having one of those Sundays where I never leave the house, especially when you consider how long each of the next three days will be for me.
I’ve got a car picking me up at 6:00am tomorrow morning, which may be a little early considering my flight isn’t until 9:00, but you just never know with Seattle traffic and I’m one of those people who is overly phobic of missing a flight. I’d rather arrive early at the airport and read my book than have to rush and deal with a bunch of stress. We’ve got a layover in Chicago, so when you combine that with the time change, you end up spending one entire day just traveling. Tuesday and Wednesday will both be really long days, then we fly home on a direct flight out of Toronto on Wednesday evening at 7:00. Due to the time change, we’ll be landing in Seattle a little after 10:00pm local time, but it’s going to feel more like 1:00am to me, which I assure you is well past my bedtime these days. It’s all good though; I’ve never been to Toronto before and am looking forward to exploring the downtown area a bit, as well as getting to work in person with so many of the people that I’ve built up a long-distance working relationship with over the last couple years.
Our house is all decked out for the holidays now. Earlier this week we picked up a Christmas tree, then yesterday I put up Christmas lights on our house. What seems like a simple task of putting up a few lights always turns into much more of a production. First I ran out of staples for my staple gun, so I go to Lowe’s and buy more. I get home and get back to work, only to realize that the 1/4″ staples I bought are too short to hold the wires to the house, meaning I have to go back to Lowe’s a second time to buy longer staples. In the end I’m happy with how it turned out; I used every light we had, and I didn’t have to risk my life up on the roof. I don’t have much Clark Griswold in me, but luckily we don’t live in one of those neighborhoods where everyone gets really competitive with their decorations. I’m not really into all that, but regardless I think our house looks nice and festive.
Jessica and the girls did a great job decorating the Christmas tree, and she had a great idea (well technically it was Pinterest’s idea but so what) to make a felt Christmas tree, complete with its own set of felt ornaments, and put it on the wall for the girls to play with. The idea is that this would discourage them from messing with the real Christmas tree, and so far its working out pretty well. I’m happy to say that Ava has only broke one of our ornaments this week.
I’m especially looking forward to this Christmas because my Mom will be coming into town to stay with us. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this will be the first time Jessica and I have ever spent a Christmas with my Mom. I feel bad about that, but more importantly I’m just glad we’re going to be together this year. She will be flying in on Christmas day, and my cousin Kristy will be picking her up at SeaTac, then coming up here for a nice afternoon and dinner. My Uncle Terry is also flying into town with her, but will be spending most of his trip with his daughter and granddaughter. I’m planning a nice big family dinner the Sunday after Christmas so hopefully we can get a bunch of people to come over.
Happy Holidays to everyone and looking forward to seeing many of our loved ones soon!