Christmas.

Like my BFF, Kelly, I'm also extremely bitter about being at work... but I'm going to make it through, I think.

For Christmas, I drove to Dickinson, ND - where John lives. I rode with a guy I know from here who grew up there, and his family now lives in Bismarck which is 98 miles East of Dickinson.

I had strict instructions from John not to speed, per the card I received in the mail the day before I left...

We headed out on Saturday morning, and the drive wasn't awful. He's a cool guy and we had a lot to talk about. As soon as I knew it, and 530 miles later, I was in Dickinson! Dickinson is like a time warp. The fashion choice of women my age is similar to what I wore 7+ years ago, in high school. Everyone drives a big-ass truck. It is a town of about 20K. It's a weird combination of hicks, oil-rig dudes and mexicans. Weird, I know.

The whole weekend is a blur, but here's a breakdown.

Saturday night, we went to dinner at basically the nicest restuarant in Dickinson. We went to the Brickhouse Grill. It is pretty much only chain restuarants and Applebee's is ALWAYS jam packed (I hate Applebee's with a passion).

It was good, though, we got a couple big steaks and enjoyed the scenes. The building is super old, like from the 1910's. It is a beautiful space, I'd love to rent it out for a party someday...

We were going to go to a movie but John had a stomach ache, so we drove around town. He showed me the best Christmas lights, the houses his friends bought and the houses he's looked at to buy.

I don't even know what we did when we got home. Watched Christmas Vacation, but I fell asleep.

Sunday Things in ND don't open until noon on Sunday because you're supposed to go to church, but we snuggled. Then went to the grocery store to get things for our Christmas meal. We watched the Vikings (it was cute how John pretends to like sports but ends up sitting on his laptop reading about the history of US Presidents). I made us some wings, salad and chips/salsa! It was pretty chill. I ventured to Walmart while John napped. Walmart.. let me tell you. I never shop there but HOLY shit, things are cheap! I got a hand mixer for $5! And it works just fine! And some wine glasses. AND WINE. I think I spent $20, including the wine, and other things I needed to pick up. Nevermind the fact everyone was dressed in camo and I just bop in with my leggings as pants, peacoat and cute winter boots.

I made dinner for John, me and his friend Shane. Shane is a deputy sheriff for the county they live in. Dickinson is the county seat, so he just bought a house in town. His wife and 6 month old son live in San Francisco with the wife's family, and they're moving there next week! So he was alone for the holidays and we had him over. I made a delicious meal, and the boys loved it. It is so cute when they talk about cop things. Also crazy how stupid people are (he pulled a guy over that was going 20 MPH over the speed limit, dude had 4 of 6 beers gone in a 6 pack and a .083 blood alcohol level, so to jail he went. dumb ass! A new meaning to drinking and driving). Shane left and John and I.... I don't even know! Probably watched SNL on Netflix.

John telling a cop story

I polished that bottle off. Also, isn't John's house he built so cute?

John had to work on Monday (Christmas Eve) from 6am - 6pm. I slept in and then watched TV. Basically I was a huge bum. He came home for breakfast and I cooked for him. I love cooking for John. He is always so grateful.

Then I got presentable and went to the police station to drop off cupcakes. While I was there, I accidentally called John his nickname (kitty cat) and....needless to say, it stuck. I got to ride along with John to one call (a simple accident) and they were calling him kitty cat over the police radio. We had to giggle. We got back to the police station, and they had already made a sign for his locker. (Last week, he overslept, was supposed to be at work at 6pm and didn't wake up til 7:30pm, so they've been calling him sleeping beauty. Hence the "wake up" before kitty cat).

We were going to go to church after he got off work but he got a last-minute call and didn't get home til 7pm, and we missed it. I opened my first super-special present and was so happy! Then, we ate our dinner. You guys, I was so damn domestic! I made ham with a brown sugar/honey glaze, mashed potatoes w/roasted garlic, green beans, buns w/whipped honey butter. I miss cooking for someone. OH, and John fell asleep after our first present exchange. Then woke up long enough to inhale dinner, give me a kiss and thank me for cooking, and zonked out again. I woke up him after I cleaned up dinner and we finished opening presents.

John picked this out himself! It is pretty.

I blame T&Co for posting beautiful photos on their Facebook page. I emailed John a few links onThursday, and this arrived on Monday.

John was excited about this map from his parents.

Maybe someday I will get into this more but I had a kind of bad childhood, and I basically hate Christmas. There are just a lot of bad memories around it, but I'm getting over it. I was happy to miss Christmas with my family (they didn't have it, actually) and enjoyed the memory making with John. After we were done exchanging our gifts, I broke down in tears and told John how happy I am that I have him, and how this was the best Christmas of my life. He knew how special that was, and we had a nice moment, one I'll remember forever. And then by 8:30pm, tired John cat was out for the night. It was fine because I had Twitter to keep me company.

Tuesday, Christmas Day, he had to work again, 6am - 6pm. He came home again for breakfast and stayed longer cause there weren't any calls. We hung out and watched TV. It's hard to snuggle with a police officer with his duty belt on. O_o

I headed out around 11am Dickinson time (they are an hour behind Central Time), and arrived back home at 8pm. Not bad time considering I had to stop in Uptown to drop my friend off and picked up some chinese food (yum).

Scene from the drive home, this is near Fergus Falls, MN.

I woke up in tears this morning and skyped with John before work... I'm sure I will adjust fine, but it is hard. I don't know what the future holds, when we'll be together for real, blah blah blah.

All in all though, it was a great time.

Oh, and here's my Christmas nails.