Day 277: Tuesday, December 15th
Ells-a-belles on her morning walk.
Everyone is loving Misfits box days.
We get so much yummy produce!
We've still been taking lots of walks, which is a little more fun at Christmas time, because everyone has their decorations out. I love the grinch taking down the lights, maximum effect for minimal effort!
We always get some combination of the six of us, but this is the usual combination.
We celebrated Zachary Taylor's birthday a bit late. I'm wearing my Tippecanoe and Tyler too shirt in honor of the only other Whig duo of POTUS/VP.
Also, not even 'H's in my reserves. So, we're going with Zack.
The nightly event was reindeer ring toss.
Hayden and Asa faced off.
Then Calib and Peyton.
Peyton was victorious.
Day 278: Wednesday, December 16th
It was Calib's graduation day. He has his Associates of Arts from PHCS. So we made a sign.
We also got some lids in the mail from a friend. I'm going to dump them all out tomorrow probably and see if we have enough to start our project.
Grandma didn't have a graduation card on her, so she made one.
And I found some balloons to hang up with the sign.
There was a virtual commencement. Calib opted out.
But, there's his name.
For lunch Asa made us all breakfast burritos. (You might recall the argument over those earlier in quarantine).
I myself just had breakfast food.
It was also our Etta-versary. We adopted her three years ago. Can you believe it's been THREE years already? She was such a handful, but now we can't imagine our lives without her. And, I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual. Asa went for a walk. This is where Etta sat for 25 minutes until he came back.
I did make her pupcakes for her anniversary of becoming a Waterstraut though. And she knew what I was doing. She sat waiting patiently.
We also went out to get some cookies for the event, complete with a ribbon and a congrats sticker.
The weekly flavors were toffee, cinnamon roll, waffle and hot chocolate. All delicious.
And fitting for the graduate.
And grandma bought dinner: another massive order of bbq from Hungry Harry's was Calib's choice.
It keeps so well we have it for like three meals!
After dinner there were desserts for the dogs. I topped the pupcakes with whipped cream and cheese "sprinkles" (Etta LOVES cheese).
And they all dug in.
And for her present, she got a new rope.
Calib, meanwhile, got some cash from grandma, his favorite gift.
And for our event for the night we had a 'Guess the Christmas Cookie' game. It was hilarious.
Calib was shockingly good at this. He even knew the cookies names.
They both did good though, so we had to have a tie breaker.
Later that evening we played some Schrodinger's Cat.
And Etta was happy with her new rope.
And the quickly got all pooped out.
Day 279: Thursday, December 17th
Needy Etta needed some morning snuggles.
For our activity for the evening, I made some cookies, which Asa decided to watch while they baked. Because this is what we do now.
I set up the cookies with all the fun toppings: icing, sprinkles, candies- all that.
And then they had 10 minutes to decorate two cookies. (They asked for longer though).
And then we judged our favorites, without knowing whose was whose.
Turns out Peyton was the winner.
And then we played Deal or No Deal for Christmas Bucks.
Asa was our host.
And things got very intense. Ultimately Peyton was the big winner though.
And while Hayden had a full evening of activities, he still showed up to complain 'I seem to have grown bored'.
Peyton and Grandma decided to take some of the last of the lemons and try and candy the peels.
In normal times, grandma comes to visit for a week or two over Christmas and takes us to Costco to pick out whatever we want. In Covid times, she comes to live here for a few months, and lets us click on anything on instacart to have Costco delivered. Same Concept. Different Experience. Still fun!
We also celebrated Martin Van Buren's birthday. He is basically "Talk Less, Smile More" 2.0 Guy, so I asked for Hamilton shirt I knew I was getting for Christmas a little early. Mom actually sat in on the lesson, and I think she enjoyed it. She certainly knows more about Martin Van Buren than she did before she came to visit.
It was also Christmas blanket fort day. The blanket fort is usually a summer thing. But last Christmas we built one because Calib was going to Italy and I wanted to do something fun for Peyton and Hayden. This year, I just wanted to do something fun because we're missing out on a lot of Christmas traditions thanks to the Pandemic. On the upside, we are blanket fort building pros at this point.
What makes a Christmas Blanket Fort different from a Summer one? Well, Christmas lights of course!
I am pretty killer at building a fort in record time, though.
Ceiling on.
And walls complete. Ta da!
And then per usual, we went to get Burger King, because somehow that became a tradition when we put up the fort. We have weird traditions, apparently.
But, who doesn't love a good blanket fort?
Well, it is an issue when Etta farts. But other than that, it's awesome.
Even Phenom loves it.
After all the day's excitement I went to bed, while Hayden and Asa watched the Mandalorian.
And then, Hayden came rushing into our room that night because apparently there was a post-credit scene in the Mandalorian Season finale they missed on the first go around. (And they were already freaking out about the finale in the first place, then they totally lost it about the end credit scene.)
Next Up: More Christmas
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