beautiful weekending.

In case you didn't know, I'm one of those late jumpers-on (I'm guessing it is pluarized like 'culs-de-sac' which I learned how to do from watching Gilmore Girls) the bandwagon for the Harry Potter craze. I started reading the books before we got married. And then I was hit with the appendectomy. So while I was layed up, I re-read all of them. Then we heard that the last movie was coming soon. Neither of us had seen many of them... I think Tommy hadn't seen any, and I had seen maybe two? So we of course had to catch up on that.

We slowly bought all 5 of the Harry Potter movies. I was surprised that they left lot of details out that were in the books, and completely changed some things!

I told Tommy Thursday night that we should go on a date. So on Friday Tommy wanted to grab Chic-Fil-A, which happened to be Pirate Night! We have no idea why. But there were pirates walking around giving out fake tatoos, and a treasure map and treasure digging pool, and Best Buy was there with a pirate video game. We had fun. And I got a picture with a pirate cow.

Chic-Fil-A sometimes makes my belly hurt. And I had unpacked like 30 or 40 boxes that day at work all by myself. So I was kind of hinting that I didn't care to go to a movie, which Tommy had mentioned. And he goes, "I've had my heart set on going to the movies all day!"

We get there at 7:30 and Tommy hands me a folded piece of paper- Harry Potter Tickets!!! Happy Rotter TIX!!! I jumped up and down and up and down and we jumped in line. What a wonderful surprise. The movie was so well done! They followed the book very closely and captured characters well and the crazy things that happen in a magical world- sigh. Good stuff.

Saturday we had to wake up SUPER dang early to take our dear friends, Jon and Kim, to the airport. Their flight left at 7 something so we were Godly friends and sacrificed our one day to sleep in and drove them out there. And then went back to bed. Later, Tommy took the car and bought some Christmas presents that I'm not supposed to know about while I kept sleeping ( = heaven!)

A few days ago, I was told by a co-worker that the Humane Society here in town has a whole room of cats that they let people play with all day. So, being the animal person I am, and since we can't have pets, (our apartment charges pet rent!) I decided we should go get our cuddly creatures fix. And it was true! We walked into a room of like 30 cats. Almost overwhelming. But they were all amazingly sweet and purring. There was a two or three year old girl visiting too, and they just let her sit by them and pat their heads- so patient! Tommy and I liked one particular cat the best- he was black and orange striped, suuuuuper fluffy and long haired (so much so that he looked fat, but was actually pretty tiny) and his face was mushed so it looked like he had run into a wall. He LOVED us. He liked to stand on my belly if I stopped petting him. Tommy named him Mufasa!

We had to leave so I wouldn't try and sneak Mufasa out with us. We headed to WalMart and started collecting things to make two Operation Christmas Child boxes! Our boxes are for 10-14 year olds, a boy and a girl. We got them flip flops, flashlights and batteries, a shirt each, and girly things and boy-y things. It was so exciting to buy little things and know they would be so appreciated. We also wrote them each a card and gave them our address. And! The card was from Unicef, which helps kids all over the world too, and had "Merry Christmas" written in six different languages! Perfect!

Tommy made us a healthy gormet dinner - grilled chicken on caesar salad, and we caught up on our tv shows- The Office, Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, etc. Again, perfect evening.

Sunday was simply awesome because Tommy's sister Kerri had her baby! Kaelyn Reece Painter was born sometime in the afternoon and we got to skype soon afterward with the happy new mama. Kerri looked great and baby was all rosy. Personally, I'm hoping she comes up with cool nicknames for us, because "Aunt Mallory" and "Uncle Tommy" both sound awful. Tommy agrees. We also spent the day delivering our boxes for Operation Christmas Child, gave 5 bucks to a homeless guy, and Tommy let me start getting Christmas decorations out!!! Quite a productive day.

We are now sad because we are realizing that we have to go to work tomorrow. BUT! Only 2 and a half days, then we're on the road to El Dorado, Arkansas!! Over and out.