Countdown Begins...

I have officially 24 hours before we fly out for the Holidays--we won't be back until the 2nd of January--and BOY do I have a truckload of things to do. Lists and lists it seems.
I am excited for the holidays--mostly because it's not MY house we're going to be messing up! Ha ha!
I finally got my house top-to-bottom spotless and I'll be danged if it isn't staying that way. (**Lara stands at the foot of the stairs and yells at the top of her lungs ALL OF YOU COME AND PICK UP YOUR SOCKS AND SHOES AND COATS OFF THE ENTRYWAY FLOOR RIGHT NOW!!!**)
I'm a really good yeller. I don't like to yell, but sometimes I have to because who wants to run down two flights of stairs just to tell someone to come back upstairs and please flush their toilet?

So upon discovering said domestic offense, I stand in the spot where the reverberation and echo work most to my advantage, take a deep breath, and yell. It's much more fun. Especially when they all come running. This is one mom who never makes it past two when she has to count. Scurry scurry.

We had some of Hubby's old friends (and business partners--they're in footwear) over last night. Great guys. They own a bunch of successful companies and travel the globe, yet they're down to earth and lots of fun to laugh with. And dedicated to their families. We had a lovely couple of hours with them. I can't wait until we have more friends (we're still new--that's the only setback to moving) to hang out with. Sure, I'm making friends at my ward at church, (one nice thing about our faith--anywhere you go in the world you have an instant support system as soon as you find your church ward) but we are missing some of our friends from Wisconsin.

So I am getting ready to run around--my new friend S. and I got golf lesson packages for our husbands because EVERYONE golfs here and it's about time our hubbies learned. And I got a sweet set of clubs for hubby this Christmas, but I didn't want to lug them all over so I got them, took a polaroid of them with a big bow on the top, and stuck the pics and the golf lesson package inside a pack of new golfballs, and wrapped that to put under the tree. The golf clubs are stuffed inside my closet, behind all my skirts. He'll never find them. Ha! (And he doesn't read this blog so I'm not worried about spoiling the surprise.) But at least I dont' have to worry about shipping them this year.
And can I just say? I LOVE Amazon.com! In ONE hour I had all the Christmas presents bought and shipped for my kids...there was only one sold out item I had to go into a store and purchase, and that was it. SUPER EASY. Of course shipping them all BACK home will be fun...

Hope everyone is having a good day!