Two More Christmases

Christmas morning, Tomkin and I exchanged a few more gifts with each other, ate a late breakfast, and then headed over to his folks' house in the afternoon. We sat and visited for a couple hours, which was really nice, and opened a few more presents. Jenny called from Oregon (she and Allison arrived safely to their new home in Portland), so we put her on speakerphone and heard about their adventures in the snowy Northwest.Tomkin and I headed home and took Chloe for a walk down to Grand Avenue. It was so quiet out! Hardly any cars around. It reminded me of those mornings in Chicago when I would walk the dogs so early that it seemed like everyone else in the city was asleep. It was kind of cool.... Back at home, we finished unpacking from our trip to Texas, and that evening we settled on the couch to watch "Annie Hall" (Tomkin had never seen it before!) and a travel show about Hawaii. We've got two major trips coming up this year: Spain in February and Hawaii in October. I love having fun stuff to look forward to! (And trips to warm climates sound very appealing right now.)
Friday morning (the 26th), Tomkin had a wedding rehearsal, and I did some blogging. Our lunch plans with out-of-town friends got postponed, but we decided to go to Pizza Luce anyway. That afternoon I did some work, and then we took Chloe for a walk. We actually sat outside at Starbucks since it was relatively nice out! Tomkin officiated a wedding, and then he and Chloe and I went over to Kris and Dave's for drinks. I think we were there for four hours, just chatting, hanging out, and catching up. Dave's two teenage daughters were there, too. It was a really fun evening! And Chloe got to play with their dog, George, so she was happy, too. (And tired by the end of the night.)
Saturday (the 27th) was my friend Brenda's 40th birthday! I've been sending her nasty cards for the last couple months now. I couldn't make it up to her birthday party in Grand Forks that night, but I was sending happy thoughts her way and wondering how she'll pay me back later this year when I hit that milestone myself.... Tomkin and I had a nice lazy day at home. I went through some drink books to find more recipes for our monthly cocktail party. Tomkin dragged an old rolltop desktop and exercise bike out from the basement and put them on the curb with a "free" sign attached. And they both disappeared! I love that method of getting rid of stuff. I did some blogging and talked to my friend Lisa in Hawaii. She's expecting her baby girl to be born any day now! I'm so excited for her, and I'll be thrilled to have her back in Iowa (an easy day's drive!) in March. Tomkin went to the library, and we decided to skip taking a walk and exercise at home to "Project Runway" instead. Then we curled up with Chloe on the couch and watched the entire series of "1940s House." I love all those PBS shows where they take a modern family and put them "back in time." They're so interesting to watch, plus I think it's a great way to learn about another time and place. There are a bunch of these PBS shows, and Tomkin hasn't seen any of them. It's giving me a good excuse to watch them again!
On Sunday we had our fourth and final Christmas celebration of the year. Tomkin and I drove up to St. Cloud and had a wonderful lunch at the Blackberry Ridge Golf Club with my dad, Sandy, Phillip, and Alex. We went to the buffet there last year as well. The food is delicious, and the view of the snowy landscape is beautiful. Our thoughtful waitress even turned on the TV so the boys could keep track of the Vikings game. We headed back to their house in Sartell, where we opened presents and spent the afternoon hanging out and visiting. Alex is now in his final semester of college (majoring in statistics)--we'll be heading up there in May for his graduation!
Tomkin and I slept in on Monday--to me, it still kind of felt like we were on vacation. We don't have a housekeeper anymore, so we've started doing our own cleaning. Tomkin's in charge of doing the floors, so he spent almost two hours vacuuming and mopping. The place looked great! One of our former Carleton classmates, Chris Hagerman, his wife, Molly, and their baby daughter, Sabine, were in town for the holidays, so they came over on Monday afternoon. We got lunch at Pizza Luce, and then they came back and hung out with us for a couple hours. We took Chloe for a walk--she really seems to like her new winter coat and boots. It takes a little while to get her (and us) dressed, but it's much more pleasant for all of us to be bundled up for winter walks in Minnesota. That evening I let a premarital education session, and then we just relaxed.

Tuesday I headed back to Weight Watchers. I was up 1.4 pounds, which I really didn't think was too bad, all holiday eating considered. Tomkin headed back to the office, and I spent my afternoon shopping at Target. I hadn't been there in a couple weeks, so I had an overflowing cart-full of stuff, including a 6-foot-tall Christmas tree that I got for $6! That evening I talked to Mom, and then I blogged about our trip to Texas.
Wednesday (the last day of 2008!), Tomkin went into the office, and I worked on editing an article for NEED magazine. Tomkin met with a couple, and I took Chloe to the park to let her run off some energy. We ran into our neighbor Tracey and his dog, Wilbur, who Chloe loves. She was happy to get to romp and play with him for a little while. I'm going to do a separate blog post about our New Year's Eve celebration (dinner with Kris and Dave at W.A. Frost), so I can really do it justice. And soon I'll write a Year in Review entry. But for now, I'll just say that 2008 was one of the most amazing and wonderful years of my life! I got to marry Tomkin and elect Obama into office--those two things alone both kind of blow my mind.