My elf altercation

When I was looking for the pictures of Sam to post I saw these from our trip to see Santa and had to share my funny elf altercation story.

We had plans the day before my dad died to go see Santa. I was going to pick Will up from school then we'd go to the mall and John was going to meet us there, we'd see Santa, have lunch, yadda yadda. That morning I got a call from my dad's hospice nurse that he'd entered the "death stage" and would probably pass in the next 24 to 48 hours. I called my brother after talking to her to see if he thought I should go see our dad that day. We had just been out to see him on Saturday and this was Tuesday. He basically told me that yes I needed to go out there and man up and do it. God bless little brothers! Anyway, I called John and we changed plans to go to the mall by my mom so the boys could still go see Santa. My mom met us there.

I had, of course, taken my camera with me because every other mall I've ever been to lets you take your own pictures of your kids with Santa. I take my own but generally we buy a package anyway...because I'm a sucker like that. We're in line and I see this sign:



In my defense, somewhere other than this sign it said something along the lines of "Please do not take any pictures while in the Santa's Village area" which I took to mean as long as you're outside the little fence area, you're cool to use your own camera. So did the lady in line behind me.

We formulated our plan. John and my mom would take the kids up to Santa, I'd hang back outside the picket fence and take my own pictures. Will was so excited to see Santa and bounded straight up to him when it was their turn. Miles was a bit more hesitant.





You'll notice the elf in the first picture there. I'm still not certain if it was a guy or a girl Perhaps elves are gender neutral? I don't know. Elf saw me taking pictures and our dialog went something like this:

Elf: Ma'am, you can't take your own pictures.
Me: Don't worry, I'll still buy yours.
Elf: That's not the issue, you're not allowed to take your own pictures.
Me (said with defiance and "don't mess with me" tone): What are you going to do, kick me out of the mall?
[Meanwhile I'm still taking pictures]
Elf: No, but I can call mall security.
Me: Go ahead, knock yourself out.

I continued to take pictures until I realized that Miles was not cooperating at all and was pretty freaked out by Santa. Mall security never showed up, so I'm glad I called Elf's bluff. We did end up buying pictures from them, even though I didn't want to out of spite at that point. Our official 2011 Santa picture looked something like this:



Lesson to Elf: don't mess with a girl whose dad has been given two days to live. She really won't care about your stupid camera policy. ;)

Our newest addition

I can't really say new anymore because it's been almost two months. We had been debating getting another dog for quite awhile now. Will really wanted one, and Miles loves dogs, but we didn't know if we wanted to deal with the work and extra responsibility involved with having one. The funeral home we had to go to after my dad died had a really sweet dog at it. That made us miss having a dog, so the day after my brother went home we headed to the Humane Society to see what they had. I was still pretty skeptical at that point. They didn't have a whole lot to choose from--unless we wanted a pit bull of some sort--but then we saw Sam. Will actually picked him out. We got to play with him for a bit and he was so sweet. He didn't react to Miles poking at him and being rough, he cuddled right up to John. Will asked if we could take him home, so that about did it. We were dog owners once again. He really is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever encountered. He lets the kids climb all over him and be rough which is great. He's pretty quiet and mellow, too, which is a nice change from crazy Cindy Lou. We aren't sure exactly what kind of dog he is...we think part Boxer, part hound dog of some sort (based on how he'd howl when John left when we first had him), and the vet thought maybe some Rhodesian Ridgeback. Regardless, he's a great dog and we're so happy he's part of our family now! Welcome to the family, Sam!

Hanging up the sign to let everyone know Sam was coming home with us!

Thanksgiving

Normally we go to San Antonio and spend Thanksgiving with John's family, but this year we offered to have it here. His parents were the only ones to take us up on the offer, but it was nice to get to spend a week with them. John and his dad got to play a lot of golf, John and I had a couple date nights, we took Grandma to Trader Joe's (which they don't have in TX, or at least not in San Antonio), went to Zoo Lights, had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner (if I do say so myself), had a couple fires in our backyard fire pit. It was a really nice visit. My kids were so sad when it was time for Grandma and P-Bill to go home. Honestly I'd love to switch the traidtion to everyone coming here to celebrate Thanksgiving, but we'll see if that happens!

Thanksgiving

Miles' Birthday

I know I have a ton of catching up to do on our blog, but I at least started putting pictures with captions into Picasa albums so I could share the links here. that will have to do for now for a few things, then I'll get more caught up when I can. I don't know where my time is going lately--I feel like I'm constantly running around and getting nothing accomplished.

Miles' Birthday