MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
I am skipping ahead to Christmas in GEORGIA. While spending an extended period of time with my immediate family is typically one of the more stressful ways to spend free time, I am now safely removed from the several days of crazy. I console myself by tricking my brain into believing that all families have equally stressful get-togethers.
Anyway, sitting in the comfort of my quiet home with my pit bull twitching under the blanket next to me and Property Brothers on the TV in the background, I take a moment to Woosah as a means of stuffing the bad memories in the deep recesses of my mind (stupendously healthy, I know), and I replace those with thoughts of holding my 3-week old niece.
World, meet Allison Lynn Ruby… one of the chillest infants I have ever been around.
Nieces – as infants, they are little ones you can tease, play with when they’re cute and quiet, and then give back when the diaper starts smelling like week old trash on a hot, sunny day. As they get older, they are mini people you can spoil, and teach some of the more… practical… lessons in life. And in my case, I can teach her how to shoot!
Even Fiancé, who is deathly afraid of babies (yes, fiancé, I am going with deathly), eventually relented and held baby Allie. I’m still giggling at the fact that the instant response to his photo from friends was, “Who gave Miller an infant?!”
The other main highlight of the trip was watching my big bro drop to one knee and propose to his girlfriend, Katie. She said “yes”… and then “maybe” – she and I are a lot alike! Congrats, Toph, 2017 brought him a daughter, a new job, and a fiancé!
Our other highlight, which is much less adult in nature, consisted of meeting up with a high school friend and her husband for dinner. We started at The Big Ketch Canton Street, a tasty little seafood restaurant in Roswell, GA. A sophisticated night of dining in a restaurant may sound like an adult way to spend an evening, and it was… until we drove back to Ginnie and Greg’s for a quick nightcap.
Four bottles of wine, two pans of microwaveable spinach and artichoke dip, lots of laughter, cat taunting, and some intense attempts at convincing my old friends to fly to Slovenia for our wedding in June, we all gave in to our extreme intoxication and passed out on the couch. By this point, I had been awake for about 30 hours, which clearly contributed to my delirium and drunkenness.
I awoke, still a little drunk, in one of their many spare rooms on the second floor unsure of how I got there. Hangovers in your 30s (and 40s) are way worse than they were in your 20s. There are very few photos of that night, probably a good thing. In fact, there is only one visible photo (of Ginnie’s 16 lb. cat), and a single video of the people-hating-cat allowing Fiancé to loving pet him.