Weeks 1-3: While Kate is away, she is ok

So some of you, hopefully, have been wondering what I've been up to while Pecos and Justin have been fending for themselves in Germany. Well, I've been home with my family in Maryland, and I have been super busy. I know it's been a while, but hopefully I can summarize my time here. Let's just see how it goes (be warned . . . it’s boring).

I flew home on December 7th and spent a few days settling in, readjusting, and catching up. That weekend, Liz (the one on the right in the picture of the two girls in the green dresses) came to town. I got to meet Liz's new dog Lucy. Lucy is super sweet and hopefully I'll have some pictures of her when I go up to visit Liz (in her new house) in Pittsburgh in a few weeks.

On the thirteenth, my brother Edward, der Waschbär, turned 30. It was great to be home to celebrate his birthday with family and friends. That week was also very nice because Edward and his girlfriend Jen had both taken the week off of work. This meant that they were available for hanging out. It was great to catch up with Edward and to get to know Jen better.

During the week of the eleventh, I also became swamped with work. This work has kept me very busy until, well, now. It's great to have work to do, even if it does infringe on more important activities like Christmas shopping, blogging, and watching OnDemand. Seriously, I love working, though I am happy that my work is (temporarily) wrapping up. That way I can go to Chicago (this weekend!!) without having to duck into a random Kinkos to squeeze in some work.

I went to visit Barbara (Justin's mom), Bill (Justin's step-dad), and Oma (Justin's grandmother) from the seventeenth through nineteenth. Barbara and I baked Justin many cookies and mailed them with some Christmas presents. Hopefully, the cookies will still be fresh when Justin gets them tomorrow. It was great to hang out with Justin's family and look through Justin's bedroom at the horrible t-shirts he wore in high school.

Between the nineteenth and Christmas, I filled my time working, hanging out with the dogs, and Christmas shopping. On the 22nd, my friend Rachele (the one on the left in the green dress) flew in from Santa Barbara for the holiday. During her time here we hung out and caught up. Her time here was brief, but it was great to see her. Hopefully Rachele will come visit us this spring.

For Christmas, my family enjoyed dressing the dogs in embarrassing outfits, eating Christmas Eve dinner at 10:30 PM (this is a bona fide tradition in my family), and just enjoying our time together. Justin and I received the best Christmas present ever. It's an oil painting of Pecos and it looks awesome. I can't wait to hang it up on our apartment. My parents, Edward, and I traveled to Barbara, Bill, and Oma's for Christmas dinner. It was great to all get together, even if I did miss Justin greatly.

I think that about wraps my time here. Obviously, I've left out all of the emotional stuff, like how happy I am to spend time with my parents, how much I enjoy talking to my brother everyday, how desperately I miss Justin, and how I am dying to pick Pecos up and give him a squeeze. It would be so wonderful if my boys could have come home to.

In a quick look forward, I am traveling to Chicago for the 29-2, Pittsburgh the weekend of the 5-7, to Justin's mom's sometime the week of the eighth, and to Georgia from the 14-19. On January 20th I fly back to Germany. I know the next three weeks are going to go as quickly as the last three. Hopefully, I’ll find some time to blog.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and I want to wish all of you a wonderful new year.

PS: Justin has our camera, so most of these pictures are old pictures I took off of Shutterfly.