Year-end wrap-up

The girls and I spent Christmas at Mom’s this year. Christmas morning was a blast with Maly and, of course, the day was all about her. I filmed the majority of the morning and as all of the present opening was coming to an end, I thought, “Awesome! I have 53 minutes of Christmas morning present opening on film in HD!” Only to find out later when we watched what I had filmed that the majority of what I filmed was the side of my leg, the couch’s armrest or the bar stool in the kitchen. When I thought I had hit the record button, I was actually hitting pause.

Later that afternoon my uncle J.L. drove out to Mom’s house and shortly after, my other uncle Bill and cousins Shantel and Joshua came out. Mom, Elise and I made Christmas dinner and the seven of us sat down for a nice meal before the uncles and cousins headed back to the Houston area.

The girls and I headed back to Austin on Wednesday afternoon in time to put away most of the Christmas presents, have dinner and go to bed.

I worked on Thursday and Friday amid a virtually dead office as most folks took the entire week off.

The weekend was upon us again soon. Mom drove up to our house to watch Maly while Elise and I went to San Antonio for Adrian and Sarah’s rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal went well and dinner was great (I’ve forgotten the name of the restaurant at which we ate… something Oyster Bar). A few of us stayed late at the bar and before we knew it, it was pushing midnight. Elise and I left and got back to our house in Austin around 1 a.m.

On Sunday we all got up and ate breakfast. Mom, Maly and I went to the AT&T store to get the cell phone that we gave to Mom activated. Then we went to HEB for lunch and to get some eggs, milk, yadah yadah.

We got home in time for Elise and I to head out for San Antonio again for the big wedding. All went well; the ceremony and reception were both great and we now have a Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Gutierrez. The reception winded down around 11 p.m. Elise and I helped load gifts and decorations before we headed back to Austin. We used my newly acquired GPS, affectionately named Claudine, that Elise’s parents gave me for Christmas to navigate our way home by way of 281. We were driving my mom’s car which makes for very easy speeding. Traveling at 85 mph down a country rode, it wasn’t until it was about 30 feet in front of us when we both saw the imminent collision we were about to have with a deer. I swerved with break-neck speed and we barely missed the deer. For a split second I had come to terms with the fact that we were probably going to flip the car and either both be seriously injured or worse, die. Thankfully we were driving Mom’s car, so it stuck to the road and we remained unscathed. Elise then politely suggested that I didn’t have to drive so GOD DAMN FAST!!!

Hearts still aflutter, we stopped at a fireworks stand out in the middle of nowhere and loaded up on explosives for New Year’s eve. We arrived safely home and went to bed around 2 a.m.

Mom left New Year’s eve morning. I went to the grocery store and later made fennel gruyer potatoes gratin. Later that evening we all loaded up and went over to Marc and Cyndi’s to celebrate bringing in the New Year. We had an awesome pot luck dinner and vegged around and chatted while the kids tore up the Swendner house. Around 11 p.m. we went out onto the golf course where Chris and I shot off the fireworks that Elise and I brought. The New Year was among us without anyone’s knowledge as we were all outside in the cold, watching Chris’s and my amateur fireworks display.

We all went back inside and everyone yucked it up while yours truly conked out on the couch. At around 3 a.m., I was awoken by camera flashes and giggles. Seems there is no rest for the wicked.

So we had a great Christmas and New Year this year. We hope yours was as well.

New Years Queen

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