Good Morning Sunshine!

I hope you all had as productive of a weekend as we did. Nick took Friday off & we did some last minute prep for our holiday party (i.e, shoved the leftover stuff into our closet), ordered the food, made a big donation (my car was full) of no longer needed household items, got our empty boxes picked up (one car in the garage), made a Costco & Trader Joe's run & took the kids on a bike ride around the neighborhood. We topped off the evening with a visit to Dion's, the kids fave pizza place (though Ella won't eat pizza so she is currently searching for her fave salad that fills her up). 

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(I know, I'm not very good with the camera phone). Charlie had just washed his hands & thought the soap burned his chapped, dry skin.

The party went really well on Saturday. We spent the second part of the day playing outside, taking Hogan for a (short) walk (he started verbally assaulting the yippy dogs in our neighborhood), having one of Nick's friends over, getting about 2/3 of our Christmas cards in the mail, listening to lots of Christmas music, having peppermint hot cocoa & opening picture boxes.

Sunday morning, I headed West to do our sub-for-santa shopping. There were 5 huge balloons that started landing near the road. Gorgeous way to start the day. It took quite a bit of time to navigate the stores (and then go back because I grabbed a wrong size), but we got it done. Nick suggested that I take Hogan on a walk around this large loop. It's over 4 miles around the 'block.' Apparently, Hogan's limit these days is about 1.5 miles.

The last 30 minutes, I was pulling Hogan. I tried to cut across the fields to get back to the car, but we were still a mile away. Here he is pretending to smell the roses. Then he started limping which made me really worried. It took us an hour and ten minutes to go 3.2 miles. Snails were passing us. After some pain meds & a little nap outside, he was fresh as a daisy & ready to play. Ella was bouncing a tennis ball when Hogan came up  & snatched it & started playing catch.

While Hogan & I were out on our adventure, Nick was busy in the garage. He made tremendous progress. I think we've opened all but 2 boxes. Both cars are in the garage, the treadmill is accessible, the kids can reach their bikes & we are almost ready to hook up the freezer. Yes, we were tired last night! I wrapped the sub for santa gifts & fixed a second batch of a mega fruit salad (leftover from the party) while the kids & Nick watched the Amazing Race finale. They are already getting excited for the all-stars season! Happy Monday to all! Here's to a productive week!