*1. christmas card | 2. silent night | 3. christmas bath | 4. happy family | 5. george washington | 6. the senate chamber | 7. peanut butter pie | 8. blood mary sunday | 9. can can brasserie*

As you can see from the look on Violet's face, some of us had a better weekend than others. Poor thing. It was so freakishly warm here that a bath was just the thing, and don't worry, we used warm water. She's still fluffy and smells great! But if you hear her tell about it, it was miserable, horrible, humiliating and degrading. But the water was warm. So thanks.

She did not, alas, come with us to Richmond, to check out Cal's new stomping grounds. The only damper to this quick trip to Virginia's capitol, our first of many in the coming weeks, was the weather. Warm, yes. But POURING. As soon as we got there, the skies opened up and this precluded the wandering around the grounds we'd been looking forward to. No matter, we got a nearly private tour of the interior of the capitol from a wonderful tour guide. (She even took us in the Senate Chamber, where he'll be working, despite the fact that the tours usually only go into the House Chamber. That was great.)

That's when things really hit home from all of us, I think.

Holy shit, batman.

I'm not really sure what else I can say about that. Except that we got home and Cal promptly went to bed. And he didn't even have two cocktails at lunch like I did.

Now that we've gotten that out of our system, it's full-force Christmas around here. There's shopping to be done (but the fun, little stuff), there are groceries to be purchased, and there are things to be baked (that's why my mom is here, right?).

Nothing but blue skies (and wind and rain, if I'm perfectly honest) ahead.