When we got ready to head up to Seattle for Christmas we ended up having to take 3 bags to check on the airlines.  We have 1 big bag and 2 medium bags.  The airlines as you might know charge for extra checked bags.  I wish we would have thought about it sooner so we could have just bought another big bag so we could have only checked two.  So while we are here we are going to check out some big pieces of luggage and maybe even some Samsonite luggage.

Alaska only charged us $25 for our extra bag, so we are thankful for that, but if we can get through the snow and possibly buy a bigger bag.  That way we will not get charged for our flight home.

Home for the holidays and now the food is all around.  Although I love this time of year, and the food that comes along with it, I do not like trying to watch the weight..  I mean come on food is awesome during the holidays.  But for some maybe dropping some Leptovox and doing some work outs.  But if your like me, you probably do not want to work out while your on vacation.

Now there is a 24 hour fitness down the street, but since it just started snowing again, don’t think the car will make it and the wind chill is freezing…

Later:
My story of our trip yesterday and all the snow that fell last night.

Well I get to see the family this week.  Looking forward to it actually.  Plus it’s Christmas.  We are pretty excited and ready to go.  I’m not sure how much I will post or be around over Christmas but will give it my best shot.  Hope everyone has a good weekend..

ps. For those ECers who drop cards, I might not be able to return drops till I get some time this week. Will try my best..

We are trying to finalize our gift shopping and pick up last minutes things so next week won’t be so hectic.  I know in the years past I would venture out for the heck of it on Christmas Eve and it would be a nightmare everywhere.  This year trying to get thing wrapped up this week.

We have picked up some cool gifts for the families.  We have also participated in filling a duffel bags full of goods that our church is going to distribute to the Fort Worth homeless shelter on Christmas day when they go feed them.  Our church filled 150 bags for 150 people in need.  We also got some personalized books to hand out to our friends and some small stocking stuffer’s so we don’t go overboard.

This year will be pretty light so we can all save a little extra money.

Last night we went with some friends to watch ‘The Christmas Sweater’ Glenn Beck program at our nearest movie theater.  I was looking forward to seeing this for quite some time and all was good once we arrived.  However, once it started we had no sound. arghh..  so 10 minutes fly by before we get sound and the movie theater wasn’t going to do anything about it.  We asked them to restart it, since we paid $15 each for the tickets.  He said they couldn’t..  Most of us were not happy.  So we started to catch up watching and trying to figure out what was going on when it shut off and they had come back in and advised us that they ‘got permission’ to restart it.

I’m really glad they did cause those first few minutes that we missed were pretty vital to his story.  Of course I will not give any of the story away here, but I do have to say that it was a wonderful story and I wished I would have saw this in person.  It’s a side of Glenn Beck that you don’t see on TV.  (Which I can’t wait for him to get on with Fox)

An excellent show and an excellent story was told.  I highly recommend watching it if you can, or read the book.  I know I’m going to go out and get his book and read it.

Book Link

As we prepare for Christmas my mother-in-law is going to watch our dog (Mazzie) for a few days.  I always love driving up toward their house as they live out in the country side in Oklahoma.  We get to drive from the city into the rural parts, and cross a big river, drive past many, many farms with cattle and cattle supplies and lots of open fields and pastures.  Such a peaceful and calming drive at times and at night past a certain point you wont see many cars.

Our dog is awesome on car trips too.  She doesn’t get too excited and mostly sleeps the entire way.  However she really likes it in the country side.  I wish we could let her off leash so she could just run around but we think she will just take off.  We almost lost her once trying this method.  And I hope she doesn’t get spoiled and eat too many treats while they are watching her.  That way damage control will be at a minimum when we get her back.  I suppose she would love a trip to the off leash dog park and run around.  I will have to do that when we get her back.

And in light of the Sooners playing for the National Championship I will show off Mazzie wearing her OU jersey.

Today was our Company Christmas Party.  Yeah I know I should be more excited about it but I’m really not.  Granted it’s the only time of the year where the office actually closes for 2.5 hours and the staff is still in the building.  The party usually starts around 10:30am and it starts off with 3 groups of employees doing 3-5 minute skits in hope of winning some Christmas loot.  After that we had a drawing for 6 door prizes and then the employees presented the owner with his and his wife’s gift.  The drawback this year – we had a problem with one of our web servers that kept our attention till about 11am so I missed the skits this year

After the gifts and door prizes then the feast begins.  It’s a huge potluck where everyone brings in something.  And of course there is LOTS of food since we have close to 80 employees.  Overall it was fun.  I mainly just parked it in my office eating some food and just keeping an eye out on the systems to make sure nothing else went down while the party was going on.

Oh well back to normal work now, it’s been fun.

So this weekend I was supposed to start decorating the house for Christmas and hanging the outdoor lighting, err I mean the Christmas lights.  Also on the to-do list was decorating inside of the house.  So as I’m writing this it’s Saturday night and the Sooners are moving one step closer to the chance to play for the National Championship and I’m just sitting here.  No, no, I haven’t done any decorating today, and doesn’t look tomorrow’s outlook is too good either.

We really want to decorate but for some reason both of us have been so busy and just not in the mood.  But tomorrow I will have to get some things so my wife can take some things to her school and decorate so maybe, just maybe we will do some decorating around the house.