Day of Recovery.

On a good-bad scale, the Christmas weekend ranked somewhere around a 12.  My kids were very well behaved, we had a good dinner at my dads, a great dinner at my moms(of course, I did do the cooking), and I managed to go two days in close proximity to my brother without wigging and out and doing something violent. T

Still, it was good to get home yesterday afternoon.  Looking to beat traffic and some inclement weather that was scheduled to come in in the afternoon, my wife did a great job of helping me corral the family into my truck so we were on the road at 10AM.  To deal with the forecasted rain, our high tech solution involved placing all of our luggage and presents inside black construction trash bags, and placing it in the back of my truck.  Historically speaking, I have always had pretty bad luck when it comes to properly securing tarps over my truck bed.  Placing things in black bags and tie-wrapping them shut seemed a much easier answer than stopping every 20 minutes to adjust a flapping tarp.

 The other positive to leaving early meant we made it back our place mid-afternoon, with plenty of time to unload the truck and start getting stuff put away again.  After a few days having 6 people and 1 Christmas Tree crammed into my moms apartment, it was nice to get back just having 4 of us(and a bunch of boxes) crammed into a different 2 bedroom apartment in the Tri-Cities.  Just when we starting to make progress in getting things organized, we dump an additional two 55-gallon trash bags worth of stuff into the mix. 

 Not that I am complaining about all the new stuff.  From a purely commercial standpoint, my mom spoiled the heck out of us, gifting my wife and I with several new clothing items, and a new crock-pot, toaster and a blender.  The kids made out like bandits.  About 2/3rds of what we brought home were new toys for the girls.
Prior to buying a lot, the wife and I had done the responsible thing and discussed a budget for spending on each other.  With much uncertainty about when our house will sell, and how our finances will work out paying rent for 1 apartment AND mortgage on the house in Belfair, we decided to spend a little less for Christmas this year, and then allow ourselves to spend a little more in the spring on our birthdays and our 10th Anniversary, if the situation allows. 

SWMBO did a good job of staying on budget.  The main thing I got was a new set of Compact Nikon ProStaff 10 X 25 binoculars, which I wanted bad.  When I am hunting, my full size binos get in the way, so they almost never come out of my backpack.  Hopefully, I will use these new compact ones more than I use my scope.  The Nikon was a good compromise brand...better than some, but I won't feel guilty like I would if they were Zeiss or Swarovski's the first time I bounce them off a rock or tree.  I also got a pair of carhart 'under armor' style thermal bottoms, and a few books, notable among them Monster Hunter Vendetta, by Larry Correia.  I'm already about 300 pages into it...full review will follow.

I did not do as good of a job of staying on budget.  I bought the wife two new Vera Bradley bags, a bunch of new Victoria's Secret Stuff, a new blow dryer, a couple of things off etsy, and finally, the big gift, which was an Amazon Kindle E-Reader.  That one put me over budget.  Oh well.  Luckily, we are at the point where nothing went on credit...her smile made it all worth it.

Still getting used to not having full cable in our new place.  Sometimes it is nice.  Last night for example I was able to snuggle up with the wife on the couch and watch an episode of Firefly to kill some time.  There are many worse ways to spend an evening. 

Monday was back to grind...work for me, more unpacking and organizing for the wife, while the girls get adjusted to apartment life.  At least in a few weeks, my wife will be able to take the girls outside to burn some energy as the weather approves.  My understanding of a Tri-Cities winter is that we still have another 6 weeks or so of potential snow. 

Full day of Hazardous Materials Supervisor training to look forward to tomorrow, so I had better get to sleep.