Shopping

Saturday, Samantha and I went shopping with my friend Kim. I wanted to get a start on my Christmas shopping. I did that, but more importantly, I needed to find something for my sister's birthday that's coming up at the end of this month. It was long day. I picked up Kim from her house in Delaware (that's a city in Ohio for all you non-Ohioans) at 11 am and dropped her back off at 9 pm. Samantha was not very happy by the end of it. She has been going to bed around 7 or 8 lately. There was too much activity going on around her for her to think about napping. I seem to remember Laura not wanting to miss anything by sleeping either.

Last year my siblings and I decided that individually we would not buy something for each of us. We picked names in July when we were all together. Last year my sister, her husband and her daughter, my brother as well as my husband and the yet unnamed and unborn "Baby" were included in the drawing. The only rule was that you couldn't pick the name of someone in your own household. If you do the math, this only saved me from buying one gift. Andrew's birthday is in December, so I unintentionally fooled him into thinking we had his name for Christmas when I asked him what he wanted.

This year we have decided to do the same thing as last year. Only differences are that we have added my brother's girlfriend and "Baby" is now named Samantha. Laura and Andrew have pretty much guessed who has whom, but to keep the secrecy, I will not discuss who I have purchased gifts for. They may suspect that as a family we have picked names X, Y and Z, but they don't know if Amy has X or if Joe does or if Samantha does. And yes, it does make a difference. A gift selected by Amy will not be the same as the one chosen by Joe. If you don't believe me, just ask Joe's nieces about the remote control cars they got this year for their 8th birthday.

The impetus for the shopping trip was to spend the day with Kim and scratch a few things off my Christmas list.