I had the pleasure of using a little vacation time to road trip down to my pretty home city of Houston to see friends and family. Last last Thursday (the day before I was to leave for Houston) I contracted a horribly awful stomach virus from Jason and spent literally all day on the couch nibbling on saltines and carefully sipping ginger ale. Luckily, the worst of it was over by the next morning, and all day Friday I just experienced some bad cramping in my stomach that caused me to walk around hunched over like a ninety-year-old grandma. I got into Houston that night and went straight to my mom's where we picked up some chips, queso and salsa from Iguana Joe's because, oddly enough, that's the only thing that sounded appetizing to me after being sick. So we spent the evening munching and watching bad reality television.
Saturday morning, we decided to go over to my Aunt Kelley's to bake and decorate some Christmas cookies with her and my cousin, Kirby. It was a fun few hours of frosting little christmas trees, snowmen, gingerbread men and stars while enjoying each others' company. That night I drove over to Kingwood to my best friend Sam's apartment for a little Christmas get-together with my best ladies. We exchanged presents, drank lots of wine and sangria, danced like wild women, took silly pictures, giggled and carried on as we have for many years. I hope we never change! It was the most fun I've had in a long time. I love that no matter how much time passes since our last visit, when we all get together, we can easily just pick up where we left off and have the best time.
Sunday, my mom, my sister, my brother and I all met up with my aunts and cousins at the Galleria. I'm so excited I got a chance to see it during Christmastime! It's always decorated so beautifully with the huge Christmas tree in the center of the mall surrounded by the ice skating rink. I wasn't really shopping for anything, as I'd finished all of my Christmas shopping quite early this year, but it was still fun to window shop and watch my sister and little teenage cousins get their makeup done at Chanel and peruse the glittery glass cases at Tiffany's. Of course we ate lunch while we were there. That was practically the first thing we did once we all met up! And, of course, we chose The Cheesecake Factory. I had to get my sweet corn tamale cakes on ;).
Monday, I went over to Tomball/Spring to my grandparents' house to celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family. Meme made a traditional Christmas dinner spread, as she always does, and it's always so delicious. After dinner, we opened presents and chatted for a while before I headed back to my mom's.
On Christmas Eve, we went back to my Aunt Kelley's to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Uncle Steve made a yummy gumbo with chicken and sausage, and there were treats all over the place for us to snack on before and after lunch. It's always so wonderful to have all of my maternal cousins all together in the same place. It was great getting to see my Aunt Kim and Uncle Dale, along with Esther, Sarah and Abigail. I'm so jealous of Sarah right now because she just left on a 7-day cruise with her boyfriend yesterday! I know they'll have a blast so I'm really happy for her.
On Christmas Day, we went over to my mom's finace's sister's (woah, that's a jumble) house for brunch and MORE present opening. Yes, I get a ridiculous amount of gifts, and my family is only growing so it's only getting more obscene, haha. After hanging out there for a couple of hours, my mom, Randy (her fiance) and I went for a two-mile walk around the park by her apartment, and then Randy made us sour cream chicken enchiladas for dinner, and of course, I made my mom make us some margaritas with her pineapple-vanilla bean infused tequila. I live for that stuff! Pretty sure I drank about four of those bad boys and then started passing out while we were playing Sequence and Yahtzee.
The day after Christmas, I hit the road fairly early to get back to Austin for an afternoon of work. Speaking of work, it really hasn't been too bad lately. We're smack in the middle of our slow season so now is the time to clean everything out, get re-organized and relax a little before March madness begins. And I'm not talking about basketball. I'm referring to the madness that ensues in Austin in March - SXSW, among a couple thousand other conferences and events that take over around that time.
Well, my apologies for the lengthy post. I know Emily will not approve! :) I just had to tell you all about my fabulous Christmas events, and I hope everyone had a cozy, warm, family-filled holiday like I did.
Happy New Year!
