Christmas Eve

Chris decided to try roasted chesnuts.  We didn't have an open fire, so that took some of the fun out of it.  And they weren't that great tasting, so that took the rest of the fun out of it.  But we tried something new and it felt like a good Christmas Eve thing to do.

Chris putting slits in the chesnuts so they won't explode in the oven.

The first bites! 

 You can see Cameron Diaz in the background, I was watching "The Holiday"

They were very dry, so we washed them down with coke.



That was our exciting Christmas Eve, mixed with some last minute wrapping and cleaning.  But it was really fun having the afternoon off of work and just hanging out at home.  Here's to sleeping in tomorrow, having a fun Christmas breakfast and spending the afternoon with my family!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Two of my friends have done this cute post, so I thought I would follow.  I was lazy and didn't go back further than what I had easily accessible.

Christmas 2006

The first Christmas in our new house! We had just gotten the living room furniture from my grandparents and we got to have our joint custody dog spend Christmas with us.  He always chews bones very quickly, so we thought we'd get him a super huge one that would last awhile, but I guess it was too big, he didn't want anything to do with it.

Christmas 2007

This is the picture we put on our Christmas cards that year.

Christmas 2008

We took turns taking pictures of each other opening our presents.  This was the year we both "cheated" and bought each other an iPod touch.  I hadn't remembered being able to squish a tree in that small space!

Christmas 2009

This picture isn't at Christmas, we were in Utah at the beginning of December and played around trying to get a cute Christmas card picture.  We ended up not using this one, but I think it's cute and funny.  Can you tell we're freezing??

Christmas 2010

This is the "prom" picture taken at Chris' work party.

We usually don't take a lot of pictures at Christmas because it's just the two of us and there's not much to take pictures of.  Hopefully this will be the last Christmas without any kids and then we'll take millions of pictures every year!

Turning 30

So far, I don't hate being 30.  I might change my mind after a couple months, though!  I'd spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to make my birthday fun, so that I would have fun and not focus on the fact that I'm 30 and still don't have kids.  So I took the whole week off of work, just to hang out at home.  I got a facial and got my nails done.  The on my birthday Chris and I went to New York City to see Blue Man Group.  It was pretty awesome.  It was my first time driving in the city and my first time spending the night there. Our hotel was a couple blocks from Times Square and the theater where Blue Man Group was playing was near NYU.  

Dinner at a little pizza place, complete with an Italian speaking family

Meeting one of the Blue Men after the show, which was amazing!

After the show we went outside to find a cab and there were several guys standing around with signs that said "limo available" and since we had really over estimated how much a cab would cost we went ahead and took a limo back to the hotel! I love fun random things like that!

Wednesday morning we walked around the city a little and found the LDS temple!  We also spent way too much money at the M&M World store!

Our hotel room was very Ikea-inspired and trendy.  I had reserved a king size bed and they upgraded us to a suite for no extra charge, I'm not sure why.  I didn't think about the bed until we climbed in to go to sleep.  It was a double! And with all the pillows on the bed neither of us really fit on the bed.  It was funny!

This is my little birthday shrine!

So Pretty!

We've lived in our house for four years now and have slowly replaced all of the major applicances.  The last happened today, the washer and dryer.  I'm not sure how old the ones that came with the house were, but they were way past time to be replaced!  The washer would dance all over the place and the dryer only worked on one setting.  We'd started saving up and then found a really good sale on labor day.  The hardest part was waiting til today for them to be delivered!  We almost went with a platinum finish, just to be fancier, but then decided to save the extra money.  I'm so excited to be able to wash lots of towels or comforters!

Back to Normal?

I know it's been months since I've posted anything, and I actually do have things I've wanted to post about, just haven't had the time.  So, while I have some down time at work I thought I'd tell you about my horrible week!
Monday - On the way home from dinner at our friends' house I start feeling this allergy-like tickle in my throat, so I take benedryl before bed.
Tuesday - I only got two hours of sleep and finally got up at 5am with a full blown cold.  I managed to get through work, with a lot of blowing my nose, taking medicine, and using hand sanitizer.
Wednesday - I feel about the same, so my boss sends me home at noon, I take a nap and more medicine.
Thursday - I felt a tiny bit better.  Chris left for a business trip to Vegas and to see his family in Utah.  I go to work, usual stuff, come home, have soup from Panera for dinner (yum!).  Around 7pm I started having this horrible stomach pain.  I wondered if it was from taking too much medicine and not enough food, or maybe the soup didn't agree with me because of the cold, I didn't know.  So I curled up on the sofa and watched tv for awhile.  When it had been over an hour and it still hurt a lot, I called my mom to see what she thought.  She wasn't sure what it could be, so I decided to play it safe and go to Patient First.  At this point I couldn't stand up straight, it hurt so badly.  My mom asked if I wanted her or my dad to come out and take me, but it would have taken too long and Patient First would have been closed by then, so I said no.  So I go and they take some blood, but can't find anything.  Since I was in so much pain the doctor told me to go to the ER where they could run more tests.  He tried to call an ambulance for me, but I didn't want to leave my car there and the hospital is literally right across the street.  So I call my parents to let them know what's going on and they decide to come out and meet me at the ER to keep me company and make sure I'm okay.  Chris got off the plane in Vegas a little after 11 while I was in the waiting room at the ER, so I called to tell him what was going on.  He felt bad for not being there, but was glad my parents were coming out.  They got there after I'd been put in a bed and given an IV and had blood drawn.  The doctor said all the bloodwork looked fine so they were going to do a CT scan to see if it was my apendix.  For those of you who have never had a CT scan, you have to drink 32 ounces of stuff which they flavored with crystal light so it didn't taste bad, but man did I have to pee afterwards! Then you wait an hour and a half, get the scan done, then wait another hour for the results.  And the dye they shoot into your IV right before the scan does some weird things to your body! I started drinking it a little after 1am and we didn't get the results til a little after 4am.  So my poor parents and I were up all night.  My dad found a recliner to drag into my room, but then decided to go take a nap in his van.  My mom and I chatted most of the time, inbetween me peeing and calling Chris to update him.  We both dozed off a little, but I don't think it counts as sleep.  The ironic thing is, I hadn't had any pain since midnight, so I was starting to worry that all of this was for nothing.  Turns out it was an ovarian cyst that had started to rupture.  I was glad there was a legitimate reason for my pain, but very glad it wasn't my apendix!
Friday - I got home about 5am, set my alarm for 7:30am to call my boss and tell her I wouldn't be in that day, fell back asleep, got called at 10:30 by Chris to check on me.  I couldn't fall back asleep so I stayed up the rest of the day.  I didn't have anymore stomach pain, but my cold was worse than ever!
So the rest of the weekend I stayed home and tried to recuperate.  I missed my brother's birthday, my friend's welcome home open house, and a cancer walk, all of which I'd really been looking forward to.  The good news is, I finally started to feel like my old self Sunday night, just in time to go back to work this morning!
I've never had to call out of work and have never been to the ER, but I'm glad I did both.  I almost had my mom take a picture of me in the hospital bed, but decided it was too silly.  I have to follow up with my doctor on Wednesday to make sure the cyst dissolves, but other than that and this cold I'm back to normal!
Sorry this was so long, it was mostly for my own benefit.  I hope to never have another week like it again!

Broken Sandals

We went to see an old fort in Arizona, it was where cheese was made to pay the workers who were building the St. George temple.  I was just wearing sandals and it was 107 degrees.  I didn't think much of the heat, after all it was much drier than Maryland, until I took a step and left my sandal behind.   At first I thought the velcro had come undone, but I looked at it and realized that it was the other side of the sandal that had broken.  Chris tried to rig something with his belt so I could still walk, but that didn't last long.  I just chalked it up to cheap sandals that I wore too much until ten minutes later when the same thing happened to the other sandal.  Turns out it was so hot that it melted the glue holding the sandals together!  We still had to walk back to the car, so I tried  standing on Chris' feet while he walked, but that didn't work for more than a minute.  So I ended up running, barefoot, ahead of everyone else to that car, to get across the hot sidewalk as fast as possible! Luckily I had my running shoes in the car.  The sandals went right into the trash.

Caught In the Rain

Today after dinner my mother-in-law and I decided to take a walk and she'd show me the alpaca's that someone in her town has as pets.  We stepped outside and realized it was drizzling so we decided to wait a few minutes.  After about five minutes I went outside and it had stopped raining, so we headed out.  I didn't have my camera with me to get a picture of the alpaca's, but they were cool looking, just kind of stared at us.  Then we were watching some swallows fly in and out of their nests when it poured rain for a few seconds.  We decided we should probably head back.  We start walking and it starts POURING.  Keep in mind this is Utah, where a big rainstorm is five rain drops.  Just then, Chris comes driving up and saves us! We were very grateful to not have to walk all the way back to the house and get completely drenched.  There was a very cool double rainbow so I took a picture from my in-laws backyard.  Apparently their town gets a lot of double rainbows, but I thought it was really cool.

I Wore Pink.........................

.......................................AND SURVIVED!!

I'm not sure how it started, but somewhere in middle or high school I decided that I couldn't wear pink or red or yellow or orange or anything that would clash with my red hair.  I would cringe when my friend would put her red haired daughter in any of those colors.  My closet was filled with mostly greens, blues and purples, with an occasional black or white.  Recently I've been trying to branch out a little bit in my colors, I discovered brown doesn't look too bad and there are some purples I've been buying that have been closer and closer to pink.  Well, this shirt I bought online and it looked very purple on the website and when I got it I decided just to try it and what do you know, I survived wearing it for a whole day!  It might just stay in my closet!

My New Favorite Gadget

My friend Dawn and I have been walking together for a couple weeks and finally last week we started jogging.  She had used a program before for beginners to work up to running a 5k and since it had been awhile since she'd been running she was okay with starting over on the program with me. The first time we went jogging we used a kitchen timer, but then I found this awesome interval timer online, so I bought it right away.  I tried it once without reading the directions and it worked okay, but then I read the directions and the next time we went jogging it worked great! It's small and light and clips easily onto your clothes, it times one or two intervals for as many rounds as you'd like.  I've never considered myself a runner, I tell myself I would like to enjoy it, but have never spent enough time building up my endurance.  Yesterday was our third time doing the intervals and I'm happy to say it felt a little easier.  I do say that with a grain of salt, because on Wednesday we have to increase our jogging time.  I don't know that I'll ever want to run a 5k, but I hope to be able to finish the program with Dawn and be in better shape and maybe a couple pounds lighter!

High Tea

My good friend Sarah is getting married this summer and while she was visiting we had a Bridal Shower themed tea party!  It was so much fun to get dressed up and use china.  Everything was so beautiful and yummy.  We tried four different kinds of herbal tea, Very Berry, Mystique, Rosamint and Creamsicle. 

Here is the table set so beautifully.

We loved the china, and the tea pots and the sugar cubes.

Even the food was beautifully arranged and worthy of a few pictures!

I didn't take too many pictures of me, but this is my best pinky picture, you have to stick out your pinky when you're drinking tea out of china!

Here's Sarah holding her miniature tea cup, we each got one as a souvenier.

And as if the day wasn't special enough for Sarah, we walked outside and in front of the floral shop next door was a sign that said if your name is Sarah come in for a free gift! She got a lovely rose!

It was a really fun day and a great way to have a small, intimate bridal shower. 

I can't wait to have an excuse to go back there!

Pineapple

Chris bought a new toy for the kitchen!  It cores and scoops out pineapples.

I thought it was pretty cool to drink pineapple juice straight out of the pineapple!

Good Friends

Last week I got to hang out with some good friends from high school, two of whom I hadn't seen in almost seven years!  We went out to lunch and had so much fun chatting and catching up.  Then we went to a park so the two little kids could play and we'd have more time to chat.

There was this cute 3 month old English Mastiff that we all fell in love with and wanted to take home.  She was more than happy to play with us!

Cake Decorating

I've always enjoyed making and decorating cakes, but have never spent much time on it.  It'd be fun sometime to take a decorating class and learn professional techniques.  For now I'll just stick to special occasions.  Today I made one for my mom's birthday.  It wasn't anything special, but I think it turned out cute and I had fun! I recently discovered some tricks that make it a lot easier.  1. Baking the cake the day before frosting it so it has PLENTY of time to cool and there won't be any crumbling.  2. If coloring the frosting, mix it and let it sit in the fridge so it's not too mushy and will hold the shape of whatever decoration you're making.  I'm pretty proud of myself for discovering those things and making a cute cake!

Junior Achievement

One of my biggest pet peeves working at the bank is people - ADULTS - who have no idea how to use their bank accout, have never been taught how to fill out a check or balance a check book.  So I've been trying to find ways to volunteer in the community.  Granted, I'm still learning myself, but I believe if you're going to have a bank account, you need to know how to use it.  So last month I got in contact with one of the other branch managers at my bank who started teaching Junior Achievement classes last year to elementary school students.  It's not just focused on banking, but being a productive member of your community and understanding how the community works.  Yesterday I went with her to a 2nd grade class in Aberdeen and really enjoyed it.  This class is five sessions long, so I'll go to those with her as her teaching assistant.  I was talking to my branch manager about wanting to get more involved with it, so she's going to see what she can find out about doing the same class at the elementary school right behind our branch.  I never wanted to be a teacher, but I enjoy helping out in classes and I feel better knowing I'm doing SOMETHING to help educate the public.
So, my lecture for the day - make sure you understand how your bank account works and start early teaching your kids how to use bank accounts!

Chris' Birthday

I was doubly happy about my bank opening late on Thursday because it was Chris' birthday and I had a chance to make him his favorite muffins for breakfast.

We did our normal birthday dinner at Sakura.

I got him a Wii game he's been wanting

I baked him a cake, with his favorite icing on half and icing I liked on the other half.  We did a video chat with his parents so they could also sing to him.  It was a little interesting trying to sing together with the time delay.  I think over all he had a good birthday.

Snow Snow Snow and MORE Snow!

Along with everyone else in Maryland, here is my snow post! The first storm we got I was on my own  - Chris' grandmother passed away and he went out to Utah for the funeral.  He left on Friday right before they shut down the airport and flew back on Tuesday just before they shut it down again!  My neighbors helped me out a little bit, but not as much as I would have expected.  I managed to get our sidewalk shoveled and my car dug out, mostly on my own.  I was very very sore by Monday, but I made it work that day, so I was happy!  My bank was closed on Wednesday and opened late on Thursday and then I had taken a vacation day on Friday, so I've had lots of chances to relax and enjoy the snow! 

This made me feel like I was in a cave.

This is our back deck after the first storm.

Chris wouldn't let me shovel at all after the second storm, he said I did plenty while he was gone. I didn't argue with him too much! We also had our "joint custody" dog this time, he had fun playing outside while Chris shoveled.

I love this picture! We dog Peanut a "toilet" out back, which he won't use, but he kept looking out at the rest of the yard, probably wishing he could go play.

This is our deck after the second storm, we left it along, wanting to see how much of it would disappear!

Congratulate Me!

For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, I have worked at a local bank as a teller for almost a year and a half.  The branch I started at was in Cecil County, so I had a fairly good commute, but I enjoyed my job and the people I worked with.  Two months ago I was offered a promotion to head teller/back-up customer service rep, at a branch that was about 15 minutes closer to home.  I had a lot of reservations about taking the job, but I felt like if I turned it down I wouldn't get another offer for a long time, if ever.  So I took it and I've been there about a month now.  It's been a lot of learning and getting used to a new environment - almost like starting a whole new job!  I miss my old branch and the customers there, but I think I'll like this new branch too.  It's so nice to be closer to home and not have to drive to Cecil County and I'm not working as many Saturdays, so that's really nice!  It's kinda scary to be in charge of the other tellers and have so much more responsibility, but all in all it's been a good change!