Christmas Picture Roundup

Our Christmas adventure started at SweetPea's mom's house, which was filled to the brim with people and animals and food and loud and joy and love. It was pretty cool, all things considered (like fitting an impressive amount of people into her mom's tiny apartment), and I got to cuddle a squeaky little baby:

That's a one month old guinea pig that was a surprise after
her sister bought a guinea pig at a garage sale.
He was super cute & cuddly, but I am in no way inclined to get one at this point. Totally strange, for me! Usually I totally Want! every cute little critter I come across.

Christmas morning and my fat cat - also known as Courage the Cowardly Dog:

We spent the morning at my mom & stepfather's house. My stepfather always has the most interesting coffee gadgets:

Watching this thing in action was very cool. He said it made really good coffee, and is supposed to be one of the best coffeemakers out there.

Here's their dog Gracie:

Gracie spent most of the morning like this:

I'd bet that's a good morning for a Golden Retreiver.

After that we headed to my dad & stepmom's house. Their house was full of people, too, but it's larger digs with fewer people, so it was nice to have a little bit more breathing room.

One of my favorite parts of Christmas at dad's house:

And OHYES there's persimmon cookies in there!!
My favorites are the persimmon cookies and the birds' nests. Super yummy! I had actually forgotten about the birds' nests until I opened it up and saw them. I had to have one right away, even though I'd gone in for persimmons!

One of the things on my Christmas Wish List was a set of luggage for travelling. I wanted something well built and obnoxiously colored so that the set would last and would be easy to find on a carousel full of luggage. The set I had linked to in my list mysteriously disappeared, so dad gifted us an envelope full of Luggage Fundage.

MonkeyDo and I headed off to Target today to see what we could find. I figured it would be a fool's errand, and that we'd putter around the store for awhile before returning home empty handed.

Boy, was I in for a shock:

They had the brand I wanted in a great, bright color and an awesome price! I bought the 28" upright, a 21" upright and a 20" upright. The 20" has a special "easy access port" for your laptop. I figured two carryons would be perfect for travelling as a family, when we can each have a carryon and then check the big one. And I can use the laptop spot for my binder when travelling for work to Big Meetings. Super!

You know, last year I bought a car, but for some reason this feels like such a Grown Up Purchase. I am so excited about it!

Those of you who were distressed to see Christmas decorations up shortly after Halloween might want to avert your eyes!

The very first thing we saw upon entering Target:

Bathing suits?
Finally, one last round of presents this morning, from another set of grandparents. My horse-loving MonkeyDo got two sets of these:

Horse lights!!
What an awesome Christmas!