Family, Food, Fun, and Christmas Ale

On Tuesday morning, we headed down to Staunton to join Aaron's family for Christmas!  Joel and Linetta and their boys were already there and Brent and Jessica and Emma joined us in the evening.  We enjoyed a casual night in on Tuesday and got ready for Christmas festivities on Christmas Eve!

We had a delicious Christmas lunch on Christmas Eve - Ham, Roast beef, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, baked apples, green beans, corn, and too many desserts to count! As if that wasn't enough, there were a ton of snacks laid out both before and after the meal... Let's just not talk about how much weight was gained this past week...

The pups spent the entire 4 days sprinting around the yard, barking at cows, and romping through the woods; so there were a lot of naps taken.  Gus strategically napped in front of people who would pet him... Pop Pop succumbed to the cute-ness.

Lunch was followed by the adult's opening their gifts while the little ones napped.  We all took turns opening a gift until everybody was out of gifts... so it took Mimi a long time.  She was very good this year!

Sometimes these pictures happen... don't judge us.

Aaron and I walked away with a bunch of stuff and we enjoyed watching other enjoy their gifts!

The pups did not enjoy the Christmas festivites that much because they tended to get forced outside while we did Christmas-y things... gifts, meals, etc.

After gifts, we went to the candlelight service at their church and came back for Christmas movies, egg-nog, and Christmas Ale while we watched Joel and Linetta do Santa things for the boys.  The Santa cookies made a brief disappearance when Camden (and then Gus and Lucy) found them and discovered their deliciousness.  Luckily, there were more cookies, so Santa got some anyway.

On Christmas morning, we lounged around with the pups.  Nicholas loved Belle and Lucy (I think it was because they left him alone while Gus and Camden enjoyed hanging out with him all of the time), so Aaron held Lucy still so that Nicholas could pet her.  She was a trooper and did really well with the many small children!

We hung out for an extra day to see Brent and Jessica when they got back from Jessica's family's Christmas.  We took Mimi and Pop Pop to lunch and hung out with them for a while.  It was nice to relax and chat with family.

We headed home on Saturday and spent the remainder of the weekend doing laundry, playing with gifts, and napping (at least the pups and I napped, Aaron is weird).  The pups slept all weekend and still seem a little groggy today!  It's hard work to play for 4 days straight!

It was a great Christmas and my parents are headed down this weekend for Christmas Part 3!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas - The Early Edition

So this year, Aaron and I spent the week of Christmas with Aaron's family.  Since we weren't going to be home for Christmas, we had our own Christmas on Monday night!  Sunday was spent wrapping the numerous gifts that had been purchased for family and for each other... there also may have been some white Russians consumed.  Nothing gets you more in the mood to play Santa than some spiked milk!  If only we'd had cookies too...

The family room felt very Christmas-y after we were done wrapping!

On Monday night, we sat down with some background music (Fantasia!) and opened our gifts!  Gus and Lucy had both gotten some Christmas colored rawhides and Chrsitmas puppy cookies!  They also got de-shedders, but they were far less excited about those...

Lucy ended up eating both of the cookies (on a towel because the food coloring in the icing bleeds on our carpets) and Gus enjoyed both rawhides. Oh well...

The original plan was to just open stockings on Monday and open gifts on Friday, but a few Christmas Ales later, I wanted to open everything!  So we did!

I neglected to get a picture of all of our stuff.  Aaron got me a beautiful necklace, a jewelry box, a Samsung tablet and cover, some Christmas movies, a Panera giftcard, a Starbucks giftcard, a Browns sweatshirt jacket, a Browns mini-helmet for my desk, and some Burt's Bees skin and lip stuff!  I got Aaron new jeans, snacks (to fill the stocking), a FitBit, a tool chest, a tool box, a nuts/bolts/nails organizer, and the Beatles DVDs he'd wanted.

Needless to say, there will now be a strict budget for future gift-giving events...

Merry Christmas!

My Whole Body Hurts...

Katie came to visit!  She was headed home for the holidays and detoured to come and stay with us for a weekend!  While the majority of the weekend was rather relaxing and we spent most of the time catching up, we also spent an afternoon on the slopes!  It was the weirdest thing... the resort had made snow.  Sounds normal, yes?  Well, in AZ, the resort pretty consistently had a ton of snow whenever we went snowboarding.  This VA resort had put snow only on the slopes; so not only did I have to figure out how to snowboard again, but I also had to not slide sideways into the grass... it was nuts.  But we had fun!

After a few "big kid" runs, we went in for some "big kid" beverages!  I warmed my wet butt by the huge fireplace (when you fall on your butt repeatedly, it doesn't matter how waterproof your awesome orange and purple pants are...) and then we headed out for a few more runs.  I decided to let Aaron and Katie go without me and I spent some time with the not-so-big-kids on the bunny hill trying to figure out my technique.  Aaron and Katie did a few runs without me and then recruited me for one last big hill run before we headed out!

I did decently enough for not having been in a year; but even 4 hours of falling is a lot.  At least my snowboarding outfit matches my board!  The important things...

After we'd had enough (and our tickets expired), we headed home for some pizza, football, and a fire... which helped warm my back muscles.  Every muscle hurt... but it was super fun!

Christmas Time is Here!

This past weekend, Aaron and I hosted a "Beer Christmas" party!  The general premise is that everybody brings an appetizer and some beer... but each bottle is individually wrapped in wrapping paper.  When you go to get a beer, it's like Christmas!  Except you mostly just hope it doesn't suck.

I failed to take ANY pictures of the party... it was fun though!  Lots of people, good conversation, some Euchre, some Cards Against Humanity, manly cigars, and lots of festive beers!

There were a few Smirnoff Ice's thrown in for good measure... and we had to enlighten people as to what it meant to get "iced".  In their defense, I'd never heard of it either... Aaron had to tell me.

Aaron used the opportunity to purchase a 13 pound brisket and smoke it in the pit barrel cooker...

It was ginormous and we had so many leftovers, it's not even funny.

So our party is completed, our leftovers are going to be eaten tonight (at least as much as 8 people can eat), and all we have let to do before Christmas is wrap gifts and watch the rest of the Christmas movies!

This is pretty much what this week will look like:

It will be Aaron and I enjoying some hot chocolate and tea on the couch watching Christmas movies while the pups beg to get belly rubs and ear scratches in between bouts of sprinting and wrestling over 2 week old raw-hides in the backyard...

I love this time of year!  Merry Christmas!

Moving is Time Consuming...

We've FINALLY finished unpacking and decorating.  Now we get to host a Xmas party, host visiting friends (I'm looking at you, Ms. Healy... I'm excited!), celebrate Xmas with family, attend a New Years party, host family visitors, and go to DC to visit a friend.

We haven't had a free weekend since we moved and we only have 2 until mid-February.  I've enjoyed it all!  But mixed with my 2 weeks of work travel, Aaron's 2 weeks of work travel, and 1 week of being in Cleveland for Turkey day, this blog has gotten no love.  Let's change that, shall we?  Enjoy another picture montage to catch up on our lives...

I went to Indiana for work.  It was frigid all week and it was no fun.  I might have to go back...

Aaron and I visited the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame while we were in Cleveland!  We also drove by Brown's Stadium.

Gus spent 95% of his Thanksgiving in a wrestling match with Jack, my sister's dog.  He was in heaven.

Santa's appearance in the Macy's Parade marks the beginning of the Christmas Ale season... the best season that there is!

We begin the season with long-distance toasts to Eddie, who was enjoying his Christmas Ale in KY.

Aaron and my cousin's daughter played in the snow on Thanksgiving... and made this beautiful snowman.

Sometimes, Lucy and Ozzy joined in on the puppy wrestling.  It was chaos.

We finally got around to decorating the house!  It seemed appropriate to decorate the house before we decorated for Xmas.

I had to go to a work training... this little poem was texted to Aaron after Day 2.  There were 1.5 more days of training after that.

Christmas wreath bones for the pups!  Cause they're spoiled...

Our sister-in-law lost her grandfather... while looking for a card, I stumbled upon this.  It made the entire Sympathy card section so much less meaningful...

Brent and Jessica came to visit!  See the little Mickey Mouse legs in Aaron's lap?  Emma and him enjoyed some Cars racing games... I think Aaron had the most fun with the game (that's geared to 4 year olds).

We got a Pit Barrel Cooker as a house-warming gift... Brent and Jessica came up to help us break it in!

Here is the final product... it was delicious!

This is photo evidence that Jessica and I were the party animals that night.  Aaron's pose was similar to Brent's... they couldn't keep up!

After the boys went to bed, Jessica and I continued to play board games!  And drink Christmas Ale... 

We are continuing to decorate and make the house our home.  We hid the cables last night!  Small victory... but it looks SO much better!

I shall make an attempt to keep up with this more often.  We have a computer at home now, so I won't have to do it on my work laptop... that should make things easier!  Merry Christmas!

Everything Mickey Mouse

 This weekend, Aaron and I took the pups down to Forest, VA for our niece's first birthday party!   We went down early so that we could help make decorations and cake.  When we got there, Jessica was elbows deep in cake frosting... it looked like a lot of work.  So I took the birthday girl and we sneakily stole frosting as it fell off the cake.  Sugar up the almost-1-year-old... these are the things that you can get away with when you are the aunt.  Once Emma was asleep, we all helped finish up the decorating and baking while enjoying some downtime with friends.  Kristen and Drew had been there for a while, so the 6 of us enjoyed some brews and wine while we crafted.

The next morning, we finished setting up for the party.  The place looked awesome.  There was a front door banner, a cupcake stand, flower centerpieces, festive tablecloths, Mickey place mats, gift bags, balloons, a Happy Birthday banner and Mickey tableware.  There was also this fantastic cake that Jessica had made.  She had put a lot of time and effort into making this an awesome party for her baby.

Then the guests arrived - grandparents and friends from both sides of the family.  We ate lunch (delicious barbecue that Brent had smoked in his Pit Barrel Cooker - which we had gotten from a whole group of people as a house-warming/anniversary gift and Aaron is now super inspired to play with) and Emma opened her presents.  Well, Jessica opened Emma's presents and tried to get her interested in each toy and piece of clothing and book.  Emma's attention span was not helping the situation, but she was genuinely interested in some of it.... it just depended on what else was happening in the moment.

And then it was time for cake...

Jessica cut a huge slice for Emma and (after wrapping her in a bib and some paper towels) let her chow down.  This was the scene from Emma's perspective...

She had cake all over her face, the table, the floor, her bib, her hands... she was covered and she was loving every bite (I would post pictures, but she's not my kid, so I don't want to slather her face all over the internet).  It was getting close to nap time though so there were occasional sugar-free moments where she just set her head down on the table to sleep... she was partied out.

After she went to sleep, most of the guests headed home.  Ben showed up a little later, the guys made beer runs, Jessica and I made a fried-food run, and the second (less child-friendly) party started!

Mostly we just ate junk food, drank tasty beer, listened to music, and hung out.  We played some games too.  It was fun!  The pups partied too, but they crashed much earlier... and took up most of the chairs.

The next morning, we ate McDonald's, played with Emma and her new toys, and headed home. 

Aaron and I did laundry and watched football (where both of our teams lost...).  The pups napped.  All day. 

We had a great weekend!  I'm excited for round 2 (Nicholas's 2nd birthday party) in PA this weekend!