Winter has begun

We've had a mellow few weeks at home. It has been extremely cold (I kid you not, I cheered when the forecast was a high of 30*).  We did get our first snow of the year, which made Sophie very happy. As much as I hate driving in the snow, walking a drift-bounding, nose-burrowing, snow-loving dog makes it all worth it.

Unfortunately, during the past week the inversion has caused the air quality to be pretty bad. Our walks have been very limited, which makes Sophie into a crazy dog.

I put the Christmas tree up, with the assistance of the kitties. They love sleeping on the tree skirt and burrowing their toys underneath it when they're feeling feisty. For a fake tree, it sure does shed more than I expect every year. This tree was my parents' very first fake tree (I think the original box said 1996), and I inherited it when my mom downsized. I'm pretty sure that one year I'm going to open up the bag and the poor tree will be completely bald. Until then, I will enjoy having a tree that I remember how it goes together, doesn't drop pine needles (besides the aforementioned fake wispies that DON'T stab you in the foot) or sap AND when you stick it in the corner of a room, you don't have to put all the branches on.

Dustin and I went to my work's Christmas party a little over a week ago. It was a dinner buffet and casino night, complete with poker, blackjack, craps and roulette. It was a lot of fun, and I found out that I'm not too shabby at blackjack. I almost tripled our winnings. Of course it wasn't real money, but it was fun all the same. I did however, win a pretty rad cookie plate during the raffle.

I have the majority of my Christmas shopping done, which is quite nice. As most of you know, I hate going shopping after Thanksgiving because of the crowds, so I've been doing most of my shopping online. As such, we've been getting a lot of packages in the mail; having so many boxes to explore thrills the kitties to no end.

I got an email from Petco on Saturday morning with an ad for 50% off a kitty tower, so I showed it to Dustin and reminded him about the kitty tower that he never did get around to making last year. So off we went to Petco and nabbed the last tower in the store. The kitties have been quite pleased, and between the tower and the boxes, I'm a little worried they're going to go into sensory overload. We were also a little worried that the cats would be too fat to fit through the hole, but both have squeezed through and made it all the way to the top many, many times.