ListLove: Home Sweet Home

Andy, Birdie, and I all made the trip west to spend Christmas with my parents. Praise the heavens!!! It had been over a year since I'd been home, and ooooooh how I missed it.

Before we left, I gave Andy one of his Christmas presents as it was way too big to travel with.

In addition to cooking, Jacques Pepin also does a lot of artwork. I got Andy a print of one of Jacque's hand-drawn menus. Oh, and it was also ACTUALLY signed my Jacques Pepin himself. You can see his signature in pencil in the center at the bottom.

I bought this months ago, so I was very excited to finally give it to him. :-) Andy also gave me gifts before we left, which included the most amazing luxurious perfectly absorbent bath robe in gray, my favorite color. What a man - he knows me so well!

Onto the trip! We flew out of Toronto because it saved my parents $$$$$$. However.... that decision turned out to be an incredibly painful one. We stood in customs/security lines for 3 hours (easily) and, along with many other people, missed our flight. Andy and I ended up flying standby.... 9 hours later I was on my way to Chicago, and he thankfully got the flight after mine going through Las Vegas. We left James' apartment in Toronto at 8:45am East Coast time. We pulled into my parents' driveway at 2:30am West Coast time. That's about 21 hours door to door. Now if that wouldn't be stressful enough as is..... we had Birdie with us!!! And there was no pet relief area in the Toronto airport!!!!! I took her into a family restroom once an hour to take her out of her crate. She would not go potty, and I was a ball of nerves. Thankfully once she and I got to Chicago, she finally went pee in their pet relief zone. Thank you Chicago for being puppy friendly!!

I have to say, I was so impressed with how Birdie did on both the trip to and from Seattle. She is a very good travelling partner. :-) I was such a proud Mommy!!!

The long day of travel also gave me the chance to read a book Sheena had sent me (she knew the only way to get me to read it was to physically put it in my hands - smart girl).

"Slade House" is about a set of soul-sucking vampire twins and their victims. It. was. weird. But I'll admit, once I finished reading it, I kept thinking about it.... which makes me think I must have actually liked it, haha.

The 23rd was our first day in WA, so we did a little last minute Christmas shopping, then of course headed to Muckleshoot (the casino near my parents' house). I won $20 playing roulette and slots. Woohoo! Christmas Eve was spent grocery shopping for Christmas dinner ingredients. Typically we have KFC for Christmas Eve dinner, but that didn't make a lot of sense since I haven't been eating meat, so instead we had.... TACOS!!!!

I lobbied to have Mexican food on Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember while I was growing up... it's like my dream finally came true, lol. After dinner we played Pictionary, boys against girls. My mom and I are still the victors!!!!

The best part of Christmas Eve was at night when Birdie rounded the corner.....wearing her new Christmas Jammies!!! My mom had got them as a surprise, and she looked sooooooooooo cute in them.

Isn't she adorable?!?!?!?!?!?????

Christmas morning was fun - especially since it was Birdie's first Christmas! She had her own stocking (my mom made it to look like her, and did such a good job). And she even sniffed out and opened her own presents. She had a very good time shredding the paper.

I was pretty surprised when one of the presents to me said it was from Mema. Turns out, when my mom and her siblings were going through Mema's things after she died, they found a set of poems she wrote to me back in the 80s. I never knew they existed, and I'm not sure anyone else did either. Here's one...

These poems are, without a doubt, one of my most treasured things.

Back to Christmas morning! Andy made us crepes for breakfast wearing his new personalized chef's jacket!

Birdie also tried on her new Christmas socks!

Andy cooked our entire Christmas dinner. Good job Chef Andy!! I am really sad I didn't take a picture of all of his hard work. I did however get a picture of the pie we got from Pie Lab - chocolate peanut butter...can't go wrong there!

And after Christmas dinner.... we went to Muckleshoot! Hahaha. Who knew a casino would be PACKED on Christmas?? Andy and I really like Muckleshoot because you can play blackjack for $1 (his fav) and roulette for 25 cents (my fav). Which basically means your $20 can stretch for a long time. I ended up winning $10 more dollars. And Andy and my mom won too (my dad just watches). We all left winners - a Christmas miracle! lol

The day after Christmas was Leif's birthday party! Leif is Nicole's son who was turning 2. One of the best parts about going home for Christmas is seeing friends who are also going home. What a treat to see Nichi and her family!!!! For Leif's birthday, we got him "Darth Tater." I had no idea he would play with it as much as he did. I got a text from Nicole days later saying he was still playing with it, lol. Good!

And since Leif's party was up north...well, we might as well go to Tulalip!!! Tulalip is the awesome casino with the best buffet. I won 7 cents. The streak continued! lol

The next day (12/27) we all went to see Star Wars. Thank goodness the recliner seats are at their movie theaters too! I don't think I can watch a movie any other way. I enjoyed Star Wars. I'll say it was more or less predictable, but I was still entertained. There's a Nordstrom Rack conveniently close to the movie theater so... I got two new pairs of boots!!! Yay for Nordstrom Rack!!!!

Sunday was Nicole's last night in town, so Andy and I went out with her family for dinner. Oh it's so nice to see her. I wish we didn't live so far away. :-(

Monday turned out to be a day from heaven for me. We ate lunch at Taco Time, shopped for stickers for my journal and got a new pair of running shoes, then went to Pike Place market, followed by dinner at my favorite thai place, and then.... THE NORDSTROM HALF YEARLY SALE!!!!!!

The next day, my mom, Andy and I went to play Bingo! We did not win, but it was still fun. :-)

That night when my dad got home, we all went to a hockey game!

Wednesday, December 30th, was our last day in WA, and it started out with a bang. Literally! Andy, my mom, and I went to a shooting range and I shot my first real gun!! It was scary! I will say, all three of us did better than I thought we would, but Andy especially! He was a natural!

And for our last night in WA, we went to.... Muckleshoot!! Hahaha. They got a jump on their NYE decor. I played roulette and slots again, and won again! I ended the trip up $55. Cool!

Our flight left Seattle at 6:20am on New Year's Eve. That meant we were up at 3:00am. Ouch. My parents took us out to the airport at 4:00am, which is when my dad tried for the umpteenth-million time to steal Birdie lol.

Let's talk about Birdie for a bit. She LOVES playing with my dad. She LOVES eating popcorn with my mom. She LOVES my parents' house, especially the mirror upstairs where she discovered there was another puppy that looked a lot like her (she would run up there to play with the puppy in the mirror). I think she would be happy being a PNW pup. :-) There is a dog park very close my parents' house that she went to almost every day. She had a good vacation too!