Have a Happy Elfing Christmas

We are going to St Lucia tomorrow!! Yipppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! Sunshine, free booze, good food, books to read and a man creche - who could ask for more?! The only slight downside is that we'll have to go to bed in about 20 minutes time in order to be up at 3am...I don't know what we were thinking when we booked 6am flights...and from Dulles which is about 45 minutes drive away...still we can always sleep on the plane, and the first flight is internal, so we don't need to do a 3 hour check in (thank god!). I don't know what kind of internet access there is at the hotel - it doesn't even have TV's as its supposed to be the Romantic resort! - so you might not hear much from me for the next few days!!

We had a lovely time at the weekend when David came to stay. It was something of a flying visit just for the night on his way to New Jersey, but it was lovely to see him. It took us a while to find him at the airport. The board said his flight was in Customs when we arrived, so we joined the scrum of people around the arrivals area and waited....and waited.....and waited...eventually we spotted Wally, a friend of ours who was on the same flight, so we had a quick chat and he said "Oh, I'm sure he'll be collecting his stuff and out in a minute". We waited some more...all the time being shoved about and having my feet run over with cases and trolleys! Eventually we phoned him and he was still in the enormous queue for Immigration!! About an hour and a half after we arrived he finally appeared through the crowd looking totally cream crackered and a bit green...

The headache and nausea didn't stop us going down to King St for dinner and drinks though. It was a bit cold (actually it was freezing and trying to sleet) so it wasn't the best weather for the look-see tour. Basically it was straight into O'Connells, then into Chadwicks, a quick walk round the marina to see the Capitol building from afar, then into 100 King for more drinks. He did well not to succumb to jet lag too early!

David is an exceedingly focused shopper. I discovered this when we went off to Best Buy and Target on Sunday morning. He was after a couple of things, and I had thought that this was bound to take pretty much all day. Usually, you give a man a gadget spec and he will spend 10 hours discussing it with the sales assistant. Not David. In and out of Best Buy in well under 30 minutes!! It was the same in Target where he was looking for gloves, hat, jumpers (basically more layers to combat the cold!). He was the only member of our family who has made it out of that shop in under 20 minutes! A record!!!

David with his new toy!

After we dropped David off at the train station we headed down to Morag and Simon's. We hadn't seen the kids in ages, and they have really grown! I especially noticed a huge difference in Lizzie. Definitely not so shy now either! She was running back and forwards giving Stephen chips (including the half eaten ones), and being thrown about by him and generally being jiggled about. She was screaming with laughter when suddenly she let rip with the most enormous botty burp ever to issue from a small child! This had us grown-ups helpless on the floor with laughter - Stephen had been holding (and jiggling her about) at about head height and felt the full force! Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Wind in your hair"!!! Little Lizzie obviously realised this was hysterically funny as she kept running up to Stephen and blowing raspberries the rest of the evening. Alison had made us Christmas cookies and was having the best time licking the icing off of hers....and everyone elses too!! Licking the icing bowl was always the best bit of baking, so who can blame her!

As we were heading off Morag suggested we go to see one of the neighbourhood houses which has a renowned light display. She and Alison jumped in the car with us and we headed off round to see it. Honestly, you have never seen anything like this in your life!! The house and garden was covered in lights, and they were synchronised to Christmas music....which he was broadcasting on his own radio station!!!!! There was a huge queue of cars parked across the street all watching the display. Words cannot describe the show! He has a website, so I looked it up and he used around 145,000 lights! Makes my thousand or so look pathetic in comparison!! http://www.collingwoodlights.com/index.php?do=pictures

Stephen and Paul cancelled their trip to Burlington on Monday. Probably wise as there was about 15 inches of snowfall there on Sunday due to the winter storm passing through. They weren't wild about the possibility of getting stuck there!! It was good, as it gave us an extra night to get stuff looked out for the holiday...mind you, we are still looking things out for holiday and its now 6pm the night before we fly! Gulp!

Paul cooked a curry last night and had us round, along with Hils, Paul and Dawn. I was starting to worry that we weren't going to make it as the traffic was horrendous getting home. Both the GW Parkway and the 1 were solid with traffic....but we were reasonably clever with the route home, so we didn't have to sit in traffic for too long. Enough time at home to have a quick shower and raid the freezer for naan bread. We got to Paul's, rang the doorbell and were faced with some woman we had never met before!! Turns out that it wasn't some fancy woman, but his neighbour! We had gone to the wrong house!!! Ooops! A most excellent (and more boozy than it should have been!) evening!!

Happy Holidays! Here's a little Christmas message from Stephen and I - guaranteed to make you smile!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1140781178

(click the link!)