A Belated Happy Holidays!

This Christmas was absolutely WONDERFUL!  Clay and I spent so much time running back in forth for 4 days straight, but I was grateful for every second of it.  It was all with our families.  I am so happy that I got to spend the holidays with the ones we love!  It is so hard to fit EVERYONE in at Christmas, but we made it work this year.

LSU Christmas Tree

We Wish You an LSU Christmas and a Tiger New Year!

                                         
(When I mention a day, Saturday, Sunday, etc... I mean the weekend before Christmas!)

On Saturday, I was able to get off work a little early and meet up with Ms. Peggy, Niki, and Steve-O (Clay's mom, sister, and super adorable nephew) for a nice walk and lunch in downtown Baton Rouge.  Then, we met up with all of our respective men.  They had gotten a shave and lunch on the Boulevard (their tradition).  We all got together and rode over to Clay's Aunt Lori's for a fun gift exchange with his dad's side of the family, then we all had a big dinner at Portabello's.  It was really nice!

Steve-O

The next day, Clay and I made our way to his Uncle Tony's in Bogalusa for Christmas with his mom's side of the family.  It was out in the country- one of my favorite places.  We were able to bring Elwood and let him play!  They had a fenced off area that had tons of land and a few deer on it.  Quite a few times, the female deer would come out of the woods and up to the gate.  Apparently it's mating season and she's the only female.  I would leave as much as possible, too!  Mr. Tony took us for a ride on his trailer to a little house on his property called the "Hog Barn."  It is a little house that some people that watched the property used to live in.  About 4 years ago, they just up and left all their belongings.  Now, the family has dubbed the little house "the store," because the kids like to go look and see what they can find.  Clay, some of the kids, and his aunts and I looked through it and they had some pretty neat things!  Clay loves stein/beer mugs, and he found a few- 3 Christmas Budweiser ceramic mugs and one cool glass one.  We did a gift exchange and ate an awesome meal, then headed back home.

Monday, Christmas Eve, was a little more relaxed.  Clay and I woke up and opened our presents to each other as if it were Christmas morning (bringing all of our stuff to Slidell to open the next day was just too much).  Elwood got some gifts, too!  We had a little running around to do, but it was all near-by.  We were finally able to bring Elwood to the dog park for some much-needed play time! That night, we had a small dinner at home, then went to our favorite restaurant - The Melting Pot - for some cheese and chocolate fondue. YUM!  After dinner, we headed home to Slidell to spend Christmas day at home.

Elwood's giant cane bone

Our tree

On Christmas day, we first opened presents at Ms. Peggy and Mr. Greg's, then had breakfast.  It was Steve-O's first Christmas! He just sat back and took it all in.  We all got some fantastic things, too!  After that, we headed to my parents' and opened presents with them and my grandparents.  Then, finally, we headed to the last stop- Uncle Scott and Aunt Lori's! Another great meal and some fun games.  One game consisted of us taking turns trying to open boxes inside more wrapped boxes with oven mits on our hands.  Clay got to the grand prize- a roll of toilet tissue.  Then we did Dirty Santa- I left with some Victoria's Secret perfumes and Clay left with a waffle maker.

We headed back to Slidell, hung out a while, then made our way back to Baton Rouge to get back in the grind the next day. It was a really nice Christmas with all of our family, and we racked up on some awesome gifts, too!

Here's what I got from the immediate fam:
From Clay:
Kuerig
K-Cups
"My K-Cup"
K-Cup Holder
Mignon Faget Sand dollar earrings (to match my necklace!)
Rose-Gold Fossil watch
Awesome socks (with dinosaurs and space!)
Brave (movie)
Pixar Shorts 2 (movies)
Godiva Chocolate

Presents from Clay

From Mom & Dad:
Kindle Fire HD (huge surprise! perfect timing since my previous e-reader broke just days before)
Leopard scarf
LSU purple fleece pullover
Purple & gold chevron make-up bag

From both mine and Clay's parents:
A trip to VEGAS over Mardi Gras break for our birthdays (my 21st!)!!!

From Ms. Peggy & Mr. Greg:
Flowerbomb Perfume
Lily Pulitzer dress
Lily Pulitzer skirt
Black Dog jacket
Monogram purse from Grateful Bags
Lip gloss
Michael Kohrs phone wallet
Tickets to see "O" in Vegas
Tickets for all of us (Clay, his parents, my parents, and myself) for Tony & Tina's Wedding in Vegas

It was a very Merry Christmas, indeed! I hope that you can say the same.

For New Year's Eve, we went (again) to The Melting Pot with our friends Casey and Chad. After that, we got our dogs and went to the levee to shoot fireworks. It was nice!

xoxo,
E