I got to work in record time today but then again, I got A LOT of green lights and I chalk it up to people bailing on work because of the holidays. Not here in the government; we have a special session this week. It doesn’t much affect me since there are, as of now, only a few submitted bills for early filing, but it’s a busy week for many. I keep thinking one of these days when I walk up to the building I’m going to see good ol’ Ron out there. DeSantis uses the same back entrance I do. But I’ll let ya know!

ANYWAY, I had to work all day Friday even though I didn’t want to. Ha. Ash was at home doing stuff to prep for our party this week then I got home and Ash had popped a Costco chicken alfredo in the oven. Around six we went over to Total Wine for some lighter beers because we had a party to attend at 7. We went last year and they do this whole cookies and cognac thing but we didn’t want anything heavy. They also do Christmas carols in their basement/rec room and a white elephant thing. It’s fun, as this is a group we don’t do a ton with all the time (girl scouts). Our host, Jen, was a wee drunk even early on so when it was wrapping up, us, Brian, and then Jen and Tom and some of our kids went to Waffle House. Haven’t been there in probably over a decade! It’s definitely a fun late night experience. A bunch of high schoolers who’d clearly gone to a dance saw Dakota wearing the shirt from her elementary school and they got all excited and hugged her. LOL. I know that when I got home, I was pretty dang tired – and full!

Saturday morning, my two main goals were to: pick Dakota up from her friend’s where she spent the night and take her to soccer practice. Mission accomplished. We had sandwiches for lunch and worked around the house. It wasn’t a particularly nice day out, that’s for sure. By about 4 we were getting ready for Dakota’s dance performance at a downtown “holiday stroll” event. She had to be there around 5:30 and the show began at 6. Her studio had eight performances in their timeslot and she was 7/8. It was a cute little song they did and she has definitely improved as a dancer. The event was cool: they have all these different things set up like singer, musicians, dance troops all over this one park and you walk around and watch, get free hot chocolate, etc. I think they could have had more Xmas decorations (this was run by the city) but overall, pretty cool.

I believe we were headed home by about 6:45. We grabbed some food and then went back to see Isaac in the church’s Living Christmas story, which they’ve been doing for 31 years! They build an entire village and church-goers volunteer to play roles. Isaac was just a villager but they all dress up, etc. We went one year before but rode on a trailer with the boy scouts. This year we decided to drive and we knew it would be a wait. We probably waited in line between 45 minutes and an hour! But we had fun with it. We saw Christmas lights (they route you through our neighborhood but on roads we don’t often travel) and listened to the story on the radio. The church told the story of Christ’s birth in between songs. Really a cool idea. I commend Isaac for doing it too; they stood out there from 6 until almost 9, staying in character (most of the time.) I snagged him a little after we got back and then I literally did nothing after that!

Sunday was a lazy morning until I got motivated to get laundry going and run a couple miles before going to the grocery store. Home Depot, and Beall’s. We had burgers for lunch and watched football. We also got more decorating done. All in all, a very productive yet relaxing day. I appreciate being balanced that way. Later that evening, Ash got motivated to work on the game room and THEN at like, 11 pm he decided to check the outside lights we’d put up. Sadly, when we hooked up one of the old strands to the new ones, the whole thing blew! Luckily it just overloaded one strand so this morning, he’s replacing that before our friend Lee comes to help put up our new mailbox. You know, the one I bought for Christmas LAST YEAR. Yeah, sometimes we just get behind.

Tonight we have to run errands and keep working on getting the house ready for our big Christmas party. As of now, we have 75 confirmed adults and 11 children coming. It’s gonna be huge!

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Just sharing a couple songs I’ve enjoyed lately!