Repent sinners!

Hello from Arizona.  The land of sunshine, greenery, people who drive like idiots.....and SNOW?  That's right, it snowed here last week and you'd think that the world was ending, according to all the news reports.  Add that to birds randomly dropping dead out of the sky and my child requesting to try vegetables at dinner the other night and the May 2012 doomsdayers just might have something going on there.  Bailey the sulcata is not enjoying his new digs inside the house where it's small and he can't dig holes but HEY LEARN TO HIBERNATE and I won't have to squirrel you away for the next few months, dude.

Christmas? WONDERFUL.  It's cliche!  It's annoying!  But I beamed the entire two weeks just because my soldier was safely home this year and truly?  (Gird your loins here.) You don't realize what a great thing you have until it's playing in the sand in a faraway war zone for a year.  (*Gag*  *Vomit* I know, I even want to punch MYSELF in the gut for being so sappy.)  My family tried really hard last year to make the holidays easy on Emma and me and they did a phenomenal job, but nothing can replace my belching, farting, inappropriate-at-the-worst-of-times best friend.  It's just not Christmas without a ridiculous twelve-different-kinds-of-wrapping-on-one-present gift from Mr. Grinch.  I think I even spied him enjoying himself this year, even though he swears he hates the holiday.  The man had never really played with Legos before and when  Miss Thang got the Lego Harry Potter castle for Christmas from Sperm Donor (he hasn't seen her in five months and I threatened him with court action if he didn't call his crying daughter so I guess he's going to try to make up for his neglect now) Chad and Emma spent a few happy hours at the table gobbling chocolate and putting it together.  Chad then announced that he LOVES Legos and what has he been missing all this time?!  Another expensive hobby, yay.

New Year's was low key.  Had a friend's daughter over that night and made friends with the new neighbors by blowing up fireworks (there was one in there called a "Golden Shower" -disturbing) in the middle of the street at one in the morning.  Nice to meet you three-doors-down president of the HOA.  Meet your new neighbors: the Obnoxious family!

Our new house is still awesome.  We have a whole lot of room and I have more furniture wants than I have money.  The TV situation is just plain SAD.  The last house had a stupid built-in entertainment center so we sold our 60-inch TV, got a tiny flat screen and put my favorite furniture piece in storage for the year that we were there but now that we can use it again the TV is a wee bit *small* for the space.  Pathetic.  We need binoculars just to see it.  But not to worry!  The man of the house is most assuredly up to the task of shopping for overpriced electronics.  We should have a giant-ass TV to fit that space by the end of  the month.

So now I'm trying to run off the five pounds I've put on over the holidays.  (It's a tradition at this point.)  And we're gearing up for a full year of enjoying each other. 

Happy New Year from the Dixon zoo!