Chapter 463

Happy #12...already! 

Somehow we managed to get our Christmas stuff done and so we spent the 23rd at Bob's dad's house clearing it out. I took a couple of bags of cat litter up there and mixed cat litter into cans of paint that were older than I am to stabilize the paint so it could go to the dump. We made two trips to the dump and accumulated another truckload of stuff that needs to go to Goodwill at a later date when it isn't raining so freakin' hard.

More pre-Christmas antics that could have potentially ended in a fatality was Bob finding his and JoAnn's stilts that their dad made. They even had their names on each pair. Talk abut how things change, these stilts were just pieces of metal welded on electrical pipe with not a safety feature in sight. No rubber ends to keep the pipe from sliding on the ground, no rubber ends to keep the pipe from skewing through an eyeball or armpit, just a kid and their pipe.  

 Since Bob, at 62, managed to use the stilts without generating a trip to the emergency department, he lived to receive the Employee of the Year award at Orion...while wearing an ugly Christmas vest.

For this honor, he was given this 15" GIANT glass "crystal" award to immortalize the moment.  As Reagan says, "What the heck in the world" are we going to do with this???

Meanwhile, down at SWFPAC (Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific), where Chris works, the company took a "Face of SWFPAC" promotional photo. Chris said the photo was stragically taken down with the subs so no secrets are given away. You can see a fancy nuclear class sub sail to the left of the photo. What says upper management better than a white guy in a hard hat?

Christmas sneaked up behind us without warning and we didn't get our tree up. We decided to scale down the tree operation this year by using a wreath. We put some of our travel ornaments on it, with our Mt. Rainier ornament from this summer as our featured ornament hanging on the bottom of the wreath. 

Bob bought me a necklace for Christmas and, I swear, they could have lowered the price by 15% or more if the packaging weren't so fancy! It came in a cool presentation package, then that was in a nice box as well. This is the kind of stuff it kills me to get rid of, but it needs to be done. It's like getting rid of a member of the family.

In direct contrast, I got Bob a set of slippers...on sale for 70% off plus a 15% off coupon! Remember that old adage "You get what you pay for"? Yea. No only did I get two mismatched slippers, I got two left feet! Useless for lounging around the house, but they're still great for dancing.

We went to Chris and Carissa's for a low-key Christmas since Carissa is exhausted from making a human and needed to rest. Reagan, being 4, was wound pretty tight and I'm glad we could help diffuse her energy. Here Mozz is taking the brunt of her energy for a while. His choice, he can always move away from her but never will.

Ready for Christmas Eve dinner.

Reagan in front of her 2018 Christmas tree with her new Christmas jammies her Mom got her. Reagan sleeps so warm she got a very non-traditional set of Christmas jammies...with zebras. Her favorite.

 Reagan digging into the fruit plate I brought. That kid does love her fruit.

 She made a special project for her daddy.

I got Reagan's animals a cute little robe at Build-a-Bear and figured Reagan needed one to match. I Amazoned her a purple robe and trimmed it to match. She was thrilled.

I think her stuffed jaguar "E" got caught in the crossfire and was rather humiliated to find himself wearing a purple fuzzy bathrobe.

 One of the activities to keep Reagan occupied on Christmas Eve was to paint my fingernails ten different colors over my existing red Christmas polish. I'm fairly sure I'm going to forget to redo my nails before I go out in public again. Hopefully I don't know myself as well as I think I do.

Reagan loves her little car rug (under Chis) so I thought she would like something bigger. Thankfully my eyecrometer is very accurate and the new rug is a perfect fit. As you can see, Chris is loving playing with Reagan's Hotwheels on the her new rug.

After the dust settled, we found Bear and Nitro being glad the chaos was over and they could just recline for a bit. Photos courtesy of Carissa.

We spent a couple of weeks on the Olympic Peninsula this summer in our teardrop. We had a really good time...while the sun was out, but once it rained, we were trapped in 20 square feet.  As a result, we decided it was time to move up to something a little larger and fancier. Here it is! In case you are mistaken, our new trailer is the one on the right, not the fancy one behind the car. 

We will fit right in with the big rigs now. We gained an additional 3 feet plus I went from almost being able to kneel in the teardrop to almost being able to stand in the Scamp.

I don't have to stand outside to be in the kitchen anymore. I do still have to bend my knees to stand at the kitchen just like I did in the teardrop.

 

Although we will be going back to having to make our bed up each night, I won't be having to put wet, muddy feet directly into my bed after a trip to the outhouse!

As we towed the Scamp home, we took a quick moment to grab a cache at a rest stop since the weather has been so wet we haven't done many of those lately.

We brought the trailer home in a pouring rain, parked it in the garage, and Bob started fixing odds and ends immediately. Once he gets it ship-shape, the fun of decorating can begin!

Have a good week everyone!