As all of you know by now, we live in our motorhome, we decided to live in it full time for a few years, and Doug’s grandson, Derrick, moved in the house with Brandi and her daughter Aubriana. They take care of things while we get the traveling out of our system.

Around the Holidays though, we like to stay close to the family, so we parked in the driveway of our house and that is where we have been living for the past few weeks, it feels strange, but it works for us.

So, Here we are, living in our driveway! It feels like we really moved up into the world! 😉

After much deliberation, we decided to put in the effort and decorate the coach for Christmas, after all, we are in a nice subdivision and we do not want to upset the neighbors too much by not only living in our driveway, but on top of that, looking like a couple of Grinch. Here’s the result of our efforts!

I hear the cheers, we really went all out did we?

Feeling festive and being in the Holiday Spirit, we got up on the 24th and decided to clean the coach so everything would look nice on Christmas Eve, especially since Nic and Amanda were coming for dinner. (That’s about the extent of the crowd we can accommodate in the motorhome).

That’s when things started going South….

While I was vacuuming, a strange odor came out of the vacuum, like burnt wires, fire, something dangerous, so I promptly disconnected the whole thing and gave it to Bear so he could check it out. We did not find the problem but we knew we couldn’t use it, so, Bear went in the shed (one of the advantage of camping in the driveway of your own house instead of in the campground) and brought back the old vacuum cleaner. Everything was fine, the coach was getting a good clean-up, and after scrubbing the bathroom, shining the mirrors, dusting, vacuuming and washing the floor, I was proud of myself and of a job well done.

I then decided to put drinks in the fridge, soda cans, and dropped one on the floor. It burst open, and produced a pretty powerful mini-geyser, sending Sprite all over the ceiling, the walls, the cupboards, the mirrors, the floor and myself. Being a good sport, and in good Holiday Spirit, I cleaned up the ceiling, the mirrors, the cupboards, the walls, and the floor (again).

I then changed into dry clothes and proceeded to cook the rice (I like to do the rice in advance and just warm it up for dinner) and prepare my fish so it would be ready to put in the oven when it was time.

While I was busy cooking, the dog (who is 16 and half, half blind, half deaf and half conscious half the time) decided that it was time for him to poop, and that just behind my feet was the right place to do it. And so he did, and of course I didn’t notice, not for a while anyway. I kept on cooking and taking stuff in and out of the fridge, walking around, dancing to Christmas music, all over the floor, the carpet, all around the coach, until I came to the front of the coach to talk to Bear and looked back… and there I saw… the whole floor looked like it had a bad case of chicken pox, but in this case, it was poopen pox, since it was covered with dozens of dots of poop.

Being a good sport and in good Christmas spirit (although I that point I started feeling the need for some help from the spirits, Jose Cuervo came to mind), I picked up the poop dots, washed the floor (again) and the carpet.

Nic and Amanda finally arrived for dinner, we ate, the food was good, everything was just fine, until it was time to open gifts… and for the life of me I couldn’t find their gifts anywhere… I searched all over the coach, the car, even the garage at the house, I don’t know what happened to their envelopes and their cards. Right now, I strongly suspect that I must have had a senior moment (those are more and more frequent) and on a whim, decided to put a stamp on the envelopes and mail them, with no address of course, just Nicolas and Amanda written in the front of the envelopes, no return address, nothing… I guess we need to take a trip to the post office when they open again this week…..So, that night, Bear, being a good sport, and in good Holiday Spirit, took out his checkbook and wrote a check.

Things had to start looking up right?

I am happy to report, that apart from a splitting headache, (for which Jose Cuervo cannot be blamed), the 25th went very well.

This morning however, I heard the dog walking around at 6 AM and quickly got up so I could take him outside, on my way to the door, I slid in dog pee, which I tried to clean up quickly with paper towels so I could go walk the dog outside in case he had to poop, when I came back in, Bear had stepped in the remaining puddle I hadn’t seen in the dark, and walked all over the hallway, so guess what I was doing this morning at 6AM?

You guessed it! I was cleaning the floor! (again)

This time, I was not in such good spirits and not such a good sport and I kept threatening the life of the dog, so when I sent Bear to buy more dog food later this morning, he questioned the reasoning, since I was going to kill the dog, why did he need any food?

MEN! They just don’t get it do they?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS everybody, and may your floors stay clean, may your brains stay away from senior moments and may your dogs ask for the door on time.