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David and I left for our annual Christmas trek to Missouri on Friday afternoon. When we left NC, it was 70 degrees. Hard to believe, even for NC. We were so blessed not to run into any weather problems. There were some minor traffic setbacks, but nothing good conversation and music couldn't get us through. We had a few snacks in the car, too. Truman didn't seem to mind the long trip. I think he settled in for a nap once we got moving.
Well, we arrived in Missouri Saturday afternoon around 4:00 p.m., and it was maybe 28. Unfortunately, that was hot compared to today. Today, I think the high reached 7, and that was without wind chill factored in. Right now it is -19. Nothing like a -89 degrees from where we started. We tried to let Truman run around outside at the Bunge's, but that lasted for about 5 minutes. We quickly moved indoors to let him play with Apollo, Katie's dog. That wore him out.
It is certainly nice to be home. We didn't get to see our families at Thanksgiving, having to settle for everyone passing the phone around so we could talk to them. It's so nice to be here. We were ready to hit the road Friday afternoon.
Tomorrow is David's birthday. I am planning on making him chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and then we are headed to Columbia in the afternoon to grab lunch. I am going to attempt a double-chocolate rum cake that he requested. It doesn't look too difficult, but we'll see how that goes. If it all turns out, David will be certainly not go hungry tomorrow. Yep, so that happened...

Christmas Card Picture Take 20...

So today we embarked on the adventure known to many of taking a picture for our Christmas cards. This was the first time we decided to do such a thing. We thought it would be pretty easy since normally Truman loves the camera. We don't even have to tell him to look at the camera. Well, today was a different story. It probably had to do with the fact that we took the picture in our backyard, and it was only 40 degrees outside. This is very cold to Truman whose coat is not very long. To make it even harder on us, we decided to sit on this big rock. Apparently the rock was very cold to Truman, and he refused to do anything but hover over the rock.

We made more than several attempts to take our picture. We tried me holding Truman while David set the timer on the camera and vice versa. We're still not sure if we got a very good picture, so we might just go with one of the funnier photos. We have David looking at Truman, while I'm looking at the camera; me looking at Truman while David looked at the camera; both of us looking at Truman while he looked at the camera...

In the end we settled for a decent picture and decided to try something inside. That didn't exactly work. We weren't able to get one of the 3 of us, but David got some good pictures of Truman and me, and some not so good but funny ones. This one to the right is a good example. David seemed to think he should go ahead and take the picture even though he saw what Truman was doing. Oh, the holiday memories.

We'll have to wait and see what picture we choose for our Christmas card. We'd have you guys vote, but we're pretty sure this picture would be chosen, and that can't go to our grandmas. So, that happened...

'Tis the Season

We're finally finished decorating (for the most part), so I thought I'd take some time to post some pictures of everything we've been up to around the house. Last Saturday, David put the lights up on the roof, and I decorated our Christmas tree. Truman mostly slept.

It was a really tough decision, but we went with our fake, pre-lit tree. Last year we had a real tree, but we decided to go fake this year for a few reasons: We are only here for 3 weeks before we travel home to Missouri, and no one will be here to water the tree while we're gone, making it a fire hazard. We also have to put it upstairs right now because we're not sure what Truman will do with it. He was great with the trees at both of our parents' homes last year, but he was never left alone. He is a very curious dog, and we would really like to not have to take him to the vet because he decided to try a fallen pine needle. We'll go back to real next year, hopefully, but definitely once we have children.

One of my favorite parts is putting up the nativity scene. It's a beautiful nativity that we received from my Aunt Rosie and cousins as a wedding present. Last year we had it upstairs on a bench, but we finally have a proper place for it now and can display it downstairs.

We put the finishing touches on the house today (well almost). We hung some fresh garland on the porch and a wreath on the front door. We also decided to get some stocking holders this year. We didn't see any stockings we liked for ourselves yet, but we did find one for Truman. There is a place for a picture on it and you can flip it to read "naughty" or "nice". Truman can never make up his mind on that end, so we thought it was perfect. Not that Truman really cares, but since he's part of our family we feel he deserves a stocking :).

Truman did bark at the stocking when we first hung it up. He seems to do that when we place something new in a room. At least something on the mantle. When I originally placed the vase on the mantle, he reacted the same way. He seems very unsure of it. David let him sniff it and see that it was fine, but just a few minutes ago he was sitting up and barking at it. Yeah, so that happened...