Exhausted for the Holidays
Dec. 25th, 2014 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aThe Three Days of Christmas are past.
On Tuesday, Kimberly and I went out to have dinner with a few of her friends and exchange some presents. On Wednesday, we took BART down to San Jose, got a ride the rest of the way to San Martin, then had a nice dinner with my mom, Bob, and Rob. We stayed over, then today we had the full Christmas experience with all of my immediate Wiedlin family (meaning: plus Jason and Lisa, who'd been with Lisa's family on Christmas Eve).
There were three dogs a dancing. My mom's Hope and Dyna and Lisa and Jason's Colby. All medium-to-large dogs, and Hope and Colby are both quite rambunctious. Quite sweet too. I went out with my mom and Jason to a local park mid-day today and we did a 2 mile walk of the dogs around a little loop. Nice park, though the cooler looking paths were the ones that went up into the hills and to a lake on the other side.
There were three siblings a sleeping. All of my siblings are somewhat surprisingly staying with the folks again. Rob has been for a bit because his voting-related job is seasonal. But Jason and Lisa also somewhat abruptly decided to move back to San Jose after 10 years in Sonoma County and after just buying a house there a year ago. I'd just seen bits about it on Facebook, but was quite surprised when I got the the whole story. Fortunately my mom and Bob's San Martin house is big (and Jason and Lisa are actually splitting time between there and the Martinezes house, which is the sort of thing that would drive me insane, but to each their own).
There were three meals an eating. Szechuan shrimp stirfry on Christmas Eve. Scrambled eggs (with various veggies) and chicken sausages for breakfast today. Ham and mashed potatoes and crescent rolls for dinner tonight. All very tasty, and especially appreciated by Kimberly and me because we rarely get home cooked meals. Three in a row (plus turkey and a few accoutrements on Christmas Eve Eve) were a special treat.
There were two games a playing. As requested, I brought games down, and so we played some of them. Two games of Mondo last night, which everyone enjoyed even though I creamed them. And a game of Shadows over Camelot today where we got killed by Rob the traitor. (I was fairly certain he was the traitor too, but I let myself get talked out of accusing him.)
And there were presents under a Christmas tree. Rob got me Ghost Stories. Mom and Bob got me Trajan and Twin Peaks Gold Collection and a new variant of bike lights. Kimberly got me a neat TARDIS t-shirt and a couple of fun-looking books (on bikes and factual/reality TV). The before-christmas party had already resulted in fingerless gloves from Julia and brownies from Crystal. Two different stockings today provided five different colors of M&M(!) — brown, yellow, mint green, orange, and the well-beloved purple — as well as great new bookmarks created by Kimberly, and various toys, tools and other candies.
Kimberly and I left at 3pm on Christmas Eve and got home at 9pm Christmas. Between excited dogs, many people, long transit, and less sleep than usual, I am pretty exhausted. (Kimberly was already peopled out by mid-day.)
Fun times though, and nice getting together with family (and K's friends beforehand).
On Tuesday, Kimberly and I went out to have dinner with a few of her friends and exchange some presents. On Wednesday, we took BART down to San Jose, got a ride the rest of the way to San Martin, then had a nice dinner with my mom, Bob, and Rob. We stayed over, then today we had the full Christmas experience with all of my immediate Wiedlin family (meaning: plus Jason and Lisa, who'd been with Lisa's family on Christmas Eve).
There were three dogs a dancing. My mom's Hope and Dyna and Lisa and Jason's Colby. All medium-to-large dogs, and Hope and Colby are both quite rambunctious. Quite sweet too. I went out with my mom and Jason to a local park mid-day today and we did a 2 mile walk of the dogs around a little loop. Nice park, though the cooler looking paths were the ones that went up into the hills and to a lake on the other side.
There were three siblings a sleeping. All of my siblings are somewhat surprisingly staying with the folks again. Rob has been for a bit because his voting-related job is seasonal. But Jason and Lisa also somewhat abruptly decided to move back to San Jose after 10 years in Sonoma County and after just buying a house there a year ago. I'd just seen bits about it on Facebook, but was quite surprised when I got the the whole story. Fortunately my mom and Bob's San Martin house is big (and Jason and Lisa are actually splitting time between there and the Martinezes house, which is the sort of thing that would drive me insane, but to each their own).
There were three meals an eating. Szechuan shrimp stirfry on Christmas Eve. Scrambled eggs (with various veggies) and chicken sausages for breakfast today. Ham and mashed potatoes and crescent rolls for dinner tonight. All very tasty, and especially appreciated by Kimberly and me because we rarely get home cooked meals. Three in a row (plus turkey and a few accoutrements on Christmas Eve Eve) were a special treat.
There were two games a playing. As requested, I brought games down, and so we played some of them. Two games of Mondo last night, which everyone enjoyed even though I creamed them. And a game of Shadows over Camelot today where we got killed by Rob the traitor. (I was fairly certain he was the traitor too, but I let myself get talked out of accusing him.)
And there were presents under a Christmas tree. Rob got me Ghost Stories. Mom and Bob got me Trajan and Twin Peaks Gold Collection and a new variant of bike lights. Kimberly got me a neat TARDIS t-shirt and a couple of fun-looking books (on bikes and factual/reality TV). The before-christmas party had already resulted in fingerless gloves from Julia and brownies from Crystal. Two different stockings today provided five different colors of M&M(!) — brown, yellow, mint green, orange, and the well-beloved purple — as well as great new bookmarks created by Kimberly, and various toys, tools and other candies.
Kimberly and I left at 3pm on Christmas Eve and got home at 9pm Christmas. Between excited dogs, many people, long transit, and less sleep than usual, I am pretty exhausted. (Kimberly was already peopled out by mid-day.)
Fun times though, and nice getting together with family (and K's friends beforehand).