Snow Day!

We got snow!  After being in AZ for the last few winters, it's been nice to have a real winter... but it has yet to snow more than a light dusting (which is just more inconvenient than pretty).  Well, on Saturday, we got about 14 inches!  We did a lot of shoveling on Saturday and a lot of hiding inside, but it eventually stopped snowing around the time we went to bed.

On Sunday, we did some more shoveling... but then we did some playing in the snow!

Aaron felt guilty when I shoveled (not sure why, since he did the majority of it anyway), so he kept taking the snow shovel back once he got a short break (we finally bought a second shovel on Sunday).  While he chatted with the neighbor, who was also out shoveling, I built a snowman!  His arms are a little wild, but it was the best I could do since his first set of arms were consumed by some playful pups...

They finished up his arms and the other half of his nose while I moved Mr. Snowman outside of the electric fence... for his own safety.

The pups were all excited about the snow... it means that they can wrestle without landing on the hard ground when they tumble over!  I tried to play with the; but, as always, it ends up with them wrestling with each other instead.  At least they get along!

While the pups ran around, I went to see how Aaron was doing.  Aaron and the neighbor were STILL talking, so I took the shovel and cleared off the back porch... Lucy supervised.

Aaron finished chatting, finished shoveling, and came to play with us in the back yard!  The pups were even MORE excited to have both of us back there to run around with them.  And when they (again) got distracted with each other, Aaron made a snow angel.

Once the pups were tired out and Aaron and I were done reliving our youth, we went inside for some hot chocolate and movies.

Gus has taken to sitting on top of Lucy, no matter where she goes.  I don't know if it's a warmth thing or a bonding thing or just Gus being a playful pup, but it's cute!  Not sure Lucy appreciates it...

As always, the weekend ends with us on the couch watching a movie... We rented a LOT of movies this weekend because we knew that we would be stuck in side.  We rented And So It Goes, St. Vincent, Hercules (again, because I slept through it the first time... and this time too.  Whoops), A Place Beyond the Pines, Men Women and Children, and Lucy.  None were particularly good.  St. Vincent was cute and made me cry a lot, Lucy and A Place Beyond the Pines were super disappointing, and And So It Goes and Men Women and Children were chick-flicky and kind of mediocre.  Not a great movie weekend, but still fun!

Valentine's Weekend

This past week, I traveled back to AZ for work.  It was nice to get to see people (and enjoy the warmer weather), but the time change and the long flights make for an exhausting week... not to mention 3 days of all-day meetings.  Needless to say, Friday night needed to be relaxing.  We watched The Lone Survivor and snuggled with the pups.  Apparently they missed me at least a little bit since they both ended up sitting on me while we watched the movie.  Gus thinks he's a lap-dog...

The movie was surprisingly good (I'd never even heard of it before).  A little gory and a lot depressing, but really well done.

Saturday rolled around with nothing on our schedule except a nice Valentine's dinner.  Aaron and I don't really do gifts and such on Valentine's Day, but he's sweet and bought me flowers and a teddy bear!

We tried to go to the winery, but it was packed... so we went down to Middletown to try out Backroom Brewery.  We'd never been but one of our coworkers found it and thought that we would enjoy it.  It was cute and cozy and had delicious brews!

We went to dinner that evening while the rest of Winchester got hit with a winter storm.  We tried to take the highway to dinner and Aaron was sliding a little, so we had to slow down, take a different route and we were late for our reservation.  The restaurant didn't mind and we still got to enjoy a nice Valentine's dinner (complete with delicious pink cocktails for me and some incredible red velvet cheesecake!).

On the way home, we sat in 45 minutes of traffic (for a 15 minute trip) because of weather-related accidents.  It didn't really snow that much, but it all melted and then froze to the roads.  No fun.  We also watched some more movies.  The Hundred Foot Journey was cute!  John Wick started off with the bad guys killing a puppy and I was NOT okay with it.  So I fell asleep on the floor with our puppies while Aaron watched Keanu Reeves get revenge for his puppy.  He said that the movie was good, but I was way too tired to care...

On Sunday, we went to the winery!  Sunday was much less hectic there and we got to enjoy some delicious wine and chocolates!

We ended the night with MORE movies.  Redbox is the best.  The Maze Runner was surprisingly good!  Predisposition was good too, but weird.

This past weekend was the perfect recovery from a long week of traveling.  We did some fun activities; but really, we did a lot of this...

When You Need to Get Rid of Beer...

When we invited a bunch of people to our house for the Superbowl, we bought a lot of junk beer (Bud Light and Yuengling).  Then Aaron's friend Luke brought 7 growlers of GOOD beer from the brewery where he works.  So we have a bunch of junk beer leftover and Lord knows I won't drink it.  So we pawned it off on other people!

We went to the 50/50 Taphouse downtown.  It has 50 beers on tap and 50 burgers.  They were both yummy!  Maple cream cheese and bacon on a burger... different, but I liked it!  Then we convinced Jeff, John, and Hannah to come over and play beer pong to help us clear out some beer.  It was not a tough sell at all.

It was slightly reminiscent of college days; but this time, everybody had to drive home, so it was a short-lived game that turned into:

John and Hannah playing with our exercise equipment while Jeff rode Aaron's bike around...

Gus trying to lick everybody's face...

Lucy hiding from everybody...

And Aaron showing off house things...

We are super exciting people, let me tell you.  But it was fun!  And we have less junk beer left, so... success!

Family, Friends, Fried Food, Football... and Cupcakes!

 After a few days of determining whether or not they would come up (they thought that Emma might have had pink eye, but nope!), Brent and Jessica arrived at our house on Friday night.  We weren't expecting them until Saturday, so we did some last minute cleaning when we got home from work and threw together some Mac n' Cheese and pizza rolls for dinner (much to Emma's delight).

They put Emma to bed and we tried to play games... but Brent had had a long day of driving and so he was in no mood to play.  We played about half a game of Life and then when he passed out on the floor, Aaron and Jessica and I played Candy Land.  We also watched our wedding videos since Jessica had been 9 months pregnant at the time and unable to attend.  We forgive her... Emma is cute.

Eventually, Aaron passed out on the floor too and Jessica and I... watched something.  I can't remember what.  Then we headed to bed, since the boys were being lame and we had big plans for a busy Saturday.

On Saturday, Brent and Aaron took Emma to run errands while Jessica and I headed to Hagerstown to shop at the outlets!  We did some damage, but mostly go things that we needed (Jessica may have gotten Emma some unnecessary, yet adorable, new clothes).   Aaron and Brent did some damage too.  They went to Best Buy to return the sound bar that we had purchased, since it was not working correctly.  Turns out, it had a bad internal memory (I think) and they replaced it for free!  Then they informed him that the Samsung speakers that Aaron was trying to link to the TV wouldn't work since we didn't have a Samsung Smart TV (we knew that might be a possibility after he called customer support, so we had discussed the next plan of action)... so I got a phone call while we were shopping and... Aaron bought a new TV.  Thank god for Super Bowl sales that made it not-super-expensive.

When we got back, the boys were smoking the pork shoulder for the pulled pork sandwiches on Sunday.  I threw some stuff into the bread maker for pizza dough and Jessica and I watched while Aaron and Brent put up our new TV and sounds system.

They finished up, we enjoyed some pizza, they put Emma to bed, and we settled in for a night of  failed attempts at games - Cranium and Apples to Apples - and ultimately watched Pitch Perfect.  Brent and Jessica had never seen it... craziness.

Sunday was spent lounging around the house, marinating wings, making cupcakes, and doing some last minute cleaning before people arrived.  I may or may not have also taken a nap.  Don't judge.

People started arriving and we made our frozen appetizers.  The pulled pork was out too and people took full advantage.  Within about an hour and a half, everybody had arrived, most of the convenience food was gone , the pulled pork had been about half consumed, and the game was about to start.  Aaron brought the wings in and we all settled in to watch the Super Bowl!

Thoughts on the game: Seattle losing made my birthday fabulous, Missy Elliot rocked, Katy Perry showed too little skin for our mostly-male crowd, Lenny Kravitz had too little of a role, and the commercials were depressing.

Gus took full advantage of all of the people and got as many scratches as he could.  He also tried to mooch food, but luckily he was unsuccessful... Lucy braved the family room to scope out all of the newcomers.  Then she decided that it was too much and went to sleep upstairs.

After the party, everybody left (and prayed to miss the snow).  Luke and Ben hung out with us that night.  We watched SNL, played Cards Against Humanity, and finished up some beverages.  Then I lamely crashed hard on the family room floor and decided to just go to bed... not quite the party scene that we anticipated; but I enjoy a good sleep...

After Luke and Ben left the next morning, Emma needed some more distraction from all of the things she was not allowed to do that she very much wanted to do (have cupcakes for breakfast, play on the computer, open every drawer in our kitchen, play on the stairs, etc.), so we watched Frozen!  For the third time that weekend.  I loved it.  Aaron was not such a fan.  He voted we watch Gladiator or Blood Diamond.... because nothing says "distract the 15 month old" as much as blood, gore, and illegal people/diamond trades.

Brent and Jessica packed up while we watched the movie and then they headed home.  Aaron and I had very little cleaning up to do, so I spent the day napping and he played some XBox and vacuumed.   Then we had Panera for dinner (bday gift cards for the win!) and rented Fury (really good!).  It was a relaxing end to a fabulous weekend!