Almost, Almost, Almost

I am allllllmmmmooooossssttt PACKED!!!! :)))) Yay for being SO close to finishing this daunting task that has taken me all last night and most of this day simply because I get too distracted (possibly on purpose :P) or frustrated!! lol. I reeeeally do hate to pack! :) The shopping might have been worse though. Really close call! haha. Nnnnnnyway, I took a little break from that to eat dinner with the fam, then went to walmart to purchase ice cream (for sundays later) and iTuuuuuuunes cards so I could get movies for the plane! Upon returning from Wally World I proceeded to spend my iTunes money on Dear John, The Proposal, and The Parent Trap (the one with LL of course!). All favorites of mine that I cannot wait to watch over and over again! haha. Then..I tried to go back to packing and...made a little more progress? I think anyway...

Then came the wondeful WONDERFUL fun stuff! Cal came over and we played Boxers or Briefs with the fam! If you've never had the opportunity to play this game you HAVE to!! It really is a MUST PLAY! I love it so so much. At one point Stephen cracked up and we laughed till we cried. Great fun! Then we ended the night with Bluebell ice cream and homemade hot fudge sundays (I made the fudge btw..I'm getting pretty good at making that stuff if I do say so myself!) lol. It was a delightful last night at home before "the end of Christmas break". And now I'm baking some last minute chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (my FAVORITE) to put away in my carry-on for safe keeping and an emergency snack break! :) Yes yes yes...couldn't resist! haha. Cal is spending the night and we plan to play a little Just Dance 2 later! It shall be a jolly good time! Got a loooooooong way to go before my night is over! ;) I shall try to post once more in the morning (or maybe even again tonight)! But for now.........hasta luego!! (That's "talk to you later" in Spanish for anyone who doesn't know!)

Exciting Purchases

Well, my mom and I just spent HOURS shopping!! Ugh...I hate shopping when I have to buy stuff. I only like it when I have plenty of money to spend and I can buy what I want!! lol. But anyway...we made progress and got everything I need--animal crackers, protein bars, propel, travel toothbrush and toothpaste, pants, a neck pillow and eye mask for traveling--you know, the important things! haha. So now that I have everything I need to pack all I have to do is make it all fit into the suitcase along with my clothes and such and make sure it's under 50 pounds! Here goes nothing.........

The Sun is Up and So Am I!

Of course...the day I'm trying to sleep as late as I possibly can I'm wide awake at 9:00 and can't go back to sleep. I have a million and four things to do though so I guess it's a good thing. I can get up and be productive now...nah, why would I do that when I can waste time viewing everyone that I've ever met's profile on facebook?! Ok, sounds good to me! So..that's what I've done for the past thirty minutes that I've just been laying here in bed. Figured I should take this time to blog...

Look at my two little cuties (that's Theo and Beks btw, if you didn't catch that)! Aren't they precious!! They have been my faithful companions at night these past few weeks! They both stayed up with me to pack last night. Well....about the time I was finishing up I looked over to find Bekah asleep sitting up in the director's chair. It was kinda adorable actually. Man..I should've taken a picture! Oh well, too late now. Anyway, Beks said last night "You know what stinks is that you're staying up late because you're supposed to get used to it and I'm staying up with you. But the difference is that you get to sleep in tomorrow and mom's gonna make me get up!" But she stayed up anyway and look how cute she is now sleeping next to me! :) It's 9:39 now and mom hasn't come to wake her up yet so the "precious boo baby" is still getting some beauty sleep! And of course she doesn't know I took the picture or that I'm blogging about her! But she will soon enough!! **Muahahahahaha** (That's supposed to be an evil laugh in case you didn't pick up on that) No really though, she reads my blog so that's how I know she'll see this. lol. Love you Beks! ;)

And the other little guy on the left...that's my Theo! :) He used to belong to my bestest friend Callie Beth. I've always loooved him and she got a new bear last year (Brady) so she used to bring both of them whenever we were spending the night together and she'd sleep with Brady and I'd sleep with Theo. We love them! :) I think she actually left him at camp for me this summer after she spent a week there. And then she told me when she went to school that I could keep him as long as I would take good care of him! I love him and mostly I just love that whenever I reeeeally miss Cal I give him a little sqeeze and remember her and all our sweet times together until I can get a REAL hug from her! :) He's my little buddy...

Anywhoo....just wanted to post this cute picture of my little babies. They're kinda adorable and I wanted to share them with everyone who reads this! hehe.

And so it begins.....

Operation "Get Used to India Time" is officially in progress! lol. It's 1:59 am in Little Rock, AR and it's approximately 1:29 pm in Goa, India! :) So.....considering the fact that I'm pretty tired and completely brain dead from trying to pack I don't really think I'm gonna make it even to late afternoon "Goa time". But I'm at least making a little bit of progress! Made it over "halfway through the day". haha. And I'm planning on sleeping as late as my body will let me tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Then I have to get up, pack some more, make a trip or two to walmart and a couple of other places, come back home and pack some more, and try to stay up even later tomorrow night! Then it will finally be the big day!! And I know it will come all too soon because I still have a million and one things to do to be ready! But it's so close and I'm getting more and more excited about this wonderful privilege I've been given!! I have so much to say and so much running through my mind, but I'm to tired to make sense of any of it so maybe tomorrow? haha. We'll just see how the day goes. I'm sure I'll need a packing break right?! But for now, this girl is done with this packing business and moving on to BED!!!!!!

Just Call Me Rachel Ray

SUCCESSSSSSS!!!!!!! :) My first attempt at Christmas dinner turned out beautifully! It all came out on time (and at the same time), it tasted good, we had enough, basically.....it couldn't have gone better! I'm thrilled! The only one thing that kinda brought me down was when I was broiling the creme brulee tonight I accidentally touched the hot brown sugar and burned my finger BAD!! :-( The hot sugar stuck to my finger and I wiped it off quickly, but it still left a little blister. Other than that though everthing went well! It was fun and mom said her day was pretty easy and she thinks we should make this a regular tradition from now on! Guess we'll see next year! Sounds good to me! :)

P.S.--My pics aren't uploading right now so I'll get them up tomorrow hopefully!

Progress

The table is set...properly I might add!! haha. I googled how to "properly" set a dinner table and since I talked mom into buying sparkling grape juice we don't just have water goblets, we also have wine goblets for the grape juice! :) I'm pretty excited about it!! Brisket is in the oven. The rolls are rising. The mushrooms are stuffed. The green beans are bundled. The salad ingredients are chopped. The dishwasher is being unloaded. And everything is on schedule to be finished at approximately 6:40! So far, my first attempt at Christmas dinner is going well. Hopefully things keep running smoothly! :)

Christmas Dinner

This year I asked mom if I could take on the responsibility of making our family Christmas dinner. We do our Christmas dinner and open presents on the 23rd and then have Santa stockings the morning of the 24th. So I began the dinner making process yesterday. What's on the menu this year?--Martha's brisket, green bean bundles, Mrs. Wenger's BSF salad, Miss Ramona's stuffed mushrooms, mashed potatos, Nanee's homemade rolls, and for dessert--Martha's creme brulee (chocolate AND vanilla)!!! And I am pretty darn excited!! lol. So, yesterday I made the creme brulee, prepped the brisket so it could marinate overnight, coated the almonds in sugar (for the salad), and made my dressing. Everyone keeps telling me, "The more you can do the day before the easier your life will be the next day!" So I did! Now, I'm in the process of starting the rolls so they can rise for a little while. Making the stuffing for the mushrooms and stuffing them. And chopping my salad ingredients. So far I've had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of this day! I'm even going to set the table and I'm trying to talk someone into getting sparkling grape juice just so we can use wine glasses because they're fun! haha. Anyway, gotta get back to cooking, but I'll keep updating on my progress! :) I'm sure I'll add pics of the finished products later tonight as well!