It took a poodle to do it, but they finally found a way to sully the fine reputation of the doberman. I introduce to you, the Doodleman Pinscher. Remember the days when these types of dogs used to be called “mutts” and were given away rather than purposefully bred and sold for $500 a piece?
I guess that makes Lizzy a LaBeagle if you want to get fancy with it.
This is another recent one from Dean Koontz. I don’t know if his writing has gotten better in the past few years or if I just needed a break from him, but I really enjoyed the last two books I read of his. This book was seemingly about an alien invasion of the earth. I’m not so much into aliens, but this story had an apocalyptic tinge to it and I really liked that. The story had me on edge until the very end. He borrowed a trick from James Patterson for this novel–short chapters. As you’re reading, you keep thinking, “I have time for one more chapter.” 50 pages later you finally put down the book and go to bed. It only took me a few days to read, and that was over the busy holidays, so that’s saying something.
I was a little disappointed in the ending, though. I thought more could have been written about the transition that occurred at the end. The book clocked in around 400 pages, so he probably didn’t want to go much longer than that (a weak excuse if you ask me). Anyway, this was a great read and I definitely recommend it.
As previously mentioned, we kicked off the Christmas weekend by visiting with Judy Friday evening. Saturday, Christmas Eve, was a nice day since it was on a weekend (Christmas Eve is not considered a “holiday” by either of our employers). That gave us the morning and afternoon to do whatever it is we do on Saturdays and then we went to my parent’s for supper that evening. After that, we came home, changed our clothes, then headed to church. We went to the 10:30pm service. It’s a little rough keeping Jake up that late, but our church only has Christmas Eve services, so we didn’t have much choice.
Jake was all pumped up for Christmas this year. He only asked Santa for one gift, and he got it. He was so excited! Note: I learned a very valuable lesson last year–do not buy the kid what he asks for in the summer or fall. Wait until November because that is what he’s counting on getting. Later that day, we headed over to Brian’s parent’s house and had supper with his parents, grandmother, and brother’s family. That evening, my parents and brother came over to visit. Then last night, Brian’s parents and grandmother visited.
I took today and tomorrow off to recover from the festivities. To celebrate, I took a long nap on the couch this afternoon. I’ll probably be up all night tonight. Poor Brian had to go back to work today because he can’t take any time off yet with his new job.
Normally my favorite part of Christmas is putting away our loot. I’ve been procrastinating a little this year and I think it’s because I have no idea where to put all of Jake’s stuff. Someone needs to buy that kid a bigger bedroom for Christmas next year.
We are recent converts to the Family Guy phenomena. I never watched the show, much less heard of it, before this year. This is probably due to its timeslot–Sunday nights at 9pm. Normally, I can be found watching whatever HBO Original Series is on. Anyway, the show is ridiculously funny and I especially love all of the pop culture references in it (whether archaic or not). I’m sure we’re missing a lot of the jokes, but it’s funny anyway. Since we’re a few years behind on the series, we’ve been renting them from Blockbuster. While doing the search for the show, the Family Guy movie came up. I had it on my list for a long time before we got it, but it was definitely worth the wait. It was less movie-like and more like and extended version of the show. So, like the show, it was ridiculously funny. If you like Family Guy, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Last night, actually. Judy came over to exchange gifts and partake in food and drink. We had a pleasant evening sitting around chatting. Of course, thanks to Jake, we had to open our gifts immediately. But, at least that gave him something to do the rest of the evening. He proclaimed himself to be the official “opener of gifts”. I had to put a stop to that nonsense. I don’t care how cute you are–you’re not opening my gifts.
Jacob was very excited at the prospect of Judy’s visit. It partly had to do with the gift thing, but he does really like her. All day, he asked “how long until Judy gets here”. By 6:30 that evening, it got a bit ridiculous–19 minutes, 17 minutes, 13 minutes…Finally, the clock chimed 7:00. Where was Judy? I think she was about 30 seconds late. I guess she’s going to have to set her watch to ours before she visits again as to not cause undue stress to Jacob.
Anyway, it was a very pleasant evening and a great way to start off the Christmas weekend.