I submit myself for punishment...

So, I know that it has been like forever since I have blogged, but come on now, Christmas was here! I am prepared for my beating now……is this a family blog? I think it best to skip that thought for now.  Anyhow, it has been super crazy at work recently, I dare anyone to work retail at Christmas time and see how you lose all of your sanity.  Between morons angry because we did not have the right color toy for their dog, and the company itself imposing all these restrictions while setting bogus sales quotas at the same time limiting payroll, and, and, and...let’s just say I'm done. 

Ho, Ho, Ho, finally time to head to TN for Christmas at the Mitchells!  I will warn you that this Christmas tale is unlike most you may hear; fore our story includes mounds of tortilla chips, containment breaches, and Collin Farrell in the movie Twilight.  Christmas day was awesome; this was the first time in my entire life that I had snow ON Christmas day!  When I was younger, we were in Florida where you are lucky to get down to the 60’s during the day on Christmas.  It was sooo beautiful!!

 

It was big fun at casa de Mitchell, with Zach opening some presents first and having a grand ‘ol time doing so!  We all followed suite and soon the room was a blur of wrapping paper, ribbons, and pure excitement!  We had to go in shifts, between Zach getting totally overwhelmed to us snacking and such, it was truly a marathon.  We were mostly done when we sat down to eat our delicious feed, turkey with all the trimmings!  After the meal we all felt like Jabba the hut so we all adopted our spots on the sofas and tried to relax. 

The next day was equally entertaining, Mom II, Chris, and I stopped at T J Max on the way to the Mitchell Mansion to scavenge their after Christmas sales.  A few treasures were acquired, but nothing of real note.  We spent most of the day recovering from the onslaught of the day prior, most of us reading, or playing with Zach.  We play in the snow for a bit, it really was cold out so we had to limit our exposure, as Zach kept breaching containment with his gloves falling off.  Speaking of gloves, I let Catherine use mine because her hands were getting cold and while tending to the kid got some Z-snot on my gloves…ah, the gift I always wanted. 

 

This picture is soo adorable~!

 

We ate, again, we were always eating, I think we all thought we had tapeworms and we wanted them to be happy on Christmas too so we were constantly stuffing something down our gullets.  Side note, homemade eggnog, freaking confusing.  I think at one point we had the whole counter full of different containers of whipping cream, egg whites, yokes, we were heating some of it up, whipping stuff, blending things, utter chaos.  All I have to say about it though, is it was sooooo worth it absolutely delicious~!

Mom II suggested that we go to the local Spanish restaurant and get a carry out order for chips and salsa.  She said, make sure you get the big bag; we were to get a couple of orders for various people as we all wanted some for the road.  We get to the place and Chris does the talking, Lindsey and I lay low. 

Chris: Can we get 6 big orders of chips and salsa please?

Spanish guy:  (crazy eyed) 6 BIG BAGS?

Chris: Yeah, the big ones.

Spanish guy: (still crazy eyed) ok.

A few minutes later three guys come out with a freaking wheel-barrel’s worth of chips and salsa.  There was obviously a communication snafoo somewhere…oh well, CHIPS FOR EVERYONE!  Can I just say the look of everyone’s face when we walked in with shopping bags of tortillas chips was priceless.  We still have 3 gallon sized bags of chips left at our house!

These are just the ones we took with us!

As the evening was drawing to a close Catherine and Lindsey said they wanted to play the new board game Lindsey got from Santa, Twilight the trivia game.  Well, me being such an expert in Twilight I played too!  Let me tell you, it was awesome, not only did I need hints on almost every one of my questions; I also added a character to the movie that wasn’t even anywhere close to right.  The question was something along the lines of “which character was next to (insert some old vampire guys name that was apparently important) in the painting on the wall.”  Well my hint was that the name started with a “C” and I should be able to get it…yeah, right.  I rack my brain, trying to think, and suddenly it hits me…Collin Farrell!!  Needless to say, I did not receive a scene card for that question.  I honestly had a blast playing the game though, the girls were taking it very seriously and toward the end it was pretty much neck and neck (my neck was frolicking in a field somewhere with hot wolf guy!) however Catherine pulled out an impressive win and the rest is history.

See, I told you Collin Farrell was the right answer!!!!!

~Represent~

The days went by all too quickly and before we knew it, we were saying goodbye and hitting the snowy trail.  The ride back was treacherous, and very slippery when we were crossing the mountains but we make it home ok and all is right….or so we thought.

When we come into the house Scooter is so excited to see us, as usual.  My friend Jamie “was” watching him while we were gone, but something was not quite right.  We walked into the living room and there are a number of poo spots and Scooter does not do this.  I am angry and of course I start thinking, we have an alarm system, so why not call and get the log of arms and disarms.  We get the log and to our surprise we see:

12/24/2010

7:45am – System Armed (this is when I left for work, Jamie understood that she was to check on him that evening)

Nothing the rest of the day.

Nothing Christmas day.

And then nothing until 6:40pm on Sunday the 26^th when she is there for 15 minutes and then leaves.

Then

Nothing until we get home Monday at 6pm.

I can’t even begin to put into words how angry I was, Scooter is like my child and to have him starving for two days while being in pain with not wanting to go to the bathroom in the house is something I never thought a good friend would do.  Chris talked me out of calling and cursing her out, and so I wrote a long detailed email to her asking her why she did such a thing.  I still have yet to receive a response from her.  As far as I am concerned, there is no excuse for that.  How someone can willingly neglect an animal and then lie to me saying she has been there is horrible.  I will update if I ever do get a response back from her.  I am not holding my breath.

Geez, what a downer that part of the happy Christmas tale was.  Overall, I had such a good time; the Marlatt/Mitchell/Vaughn-Dowdal/Bishop Christmas was one for the record books!  I feel as though I have gained at least 5 pounds of fat, but the memories and love I gained far outweighs that.  Thanks everyone for such a great time!

These next two pictures will show that Zach is ready for life, all you need is Star Wars and Starbucks...that's how I role, it will work for him too ;D

Father and son watching Star Wars together, all is right in the world!

Awesome.