Just a Quick Note

I know I haven't been very good lately about posting, that's partly because I've joined both myspace and facebook and partly because there really hasn't been much of interest to tell you about. Last week I had a bad cold and now Chris has it, so we've been taking turns taking care of each other - well as much as Chris will let me take care of him. I'm very proud of the fact that I never had to take a day off from work because of my cold. I almost lost my voice, but managed to head that off. For those of you who don't know, Chris is starting a new job next month. He's still not sure whether or not he's excited about it, but it'll be a big step up for him. He'll get a security clearance and they'll pay for him to get his Master's. Plus he'll be working on middle east issues, instead of Latin America. My job continues to go well, and I'm still loving it - Chris cringes when anyone asks me if I like my job because he's getting tired of hearing how much I like it. I do have to mention a funny day I had last week (while I wasn't feeling well) - I ran over a guy's foot and locked myself into two cars. You can ask me for the details if you want. We're really close to having our adoption paperwork done. It's taken longer than I'd originally hoped, but with working almost full time and the holidays I decided it was better to take things slow than to try and kill myself. I know we'll get the baby that is meant for our family when he/she is meant to come. So that's what is going on with us, hopefully soon we'll have something fun to take pictures of!

Our Christmas

We had a very nice, low key Christmas. We opened presents at home and then went to my parents house for the afternoon. That got cut a little shorter than usual because the two dogs don't get along and we can only keep them locked up in seperate rooms for so long. Plus I wanted to get back home to play Sims on the Wii! The Wii was our Christmas present to ourselves, we weren't planning on getting one until after the holidays, but I happened to be at Best Buy at the right time.

Saturday we went to my aunt's house to exchange presents with my mom's side of the family. That was fun, with way too much food. And we're always excited to take a picture of all the girl cousins. This year we added our cousins' girlfriend to the picture and we had a new baby girl to add! There are two girls not in the picture and one on the way, we can't wait to have more!

My Work Brother

This is Chris, one of the guys I work with. Someone told us we looked like we could be brother and sister and a couple times we've joked about telling people that and seeing who would believe us. He teases me like an older brother would and there are times I want to strangle him, like I'm sure I would an older brother (it's a good thing I don't work directly with him the majority of the time). I had my camera with me anyway because today was our office Christmas party, so I took this picture to show to people outside of work and see if anyone else thought we could be siblings. I know most of you reading this have met my one brother who has red hair and know that we look a lot alike and he doesn't look anything like Chris. But, that aside, tell me what you think.

The Decorations Are Finally Up!

We got our tree last weekend, our first real one, and finally got around to decorating it and putting up some other decorations. We're both excited to have a real tree finally, now that we have room for it! We had to go back out twice to get more lights and decorations for the tree and I'm so glad we won't have to do that every year, it was so expensive! Tomorrow is going to be my big shopping day, I have ideas for everyone, I just haven't gone out to buy them yet! Every year I tell myself I'm going to start shopping earlier and every year it comes to a couple weeks before Christmas and I'm still not done! And Chris and I still haven't decided what to get ourselves - we've narrowed it down to a GPS for the car, a theraputic memory foam mattress pad or a Wii. So, anyway, we're getting close to being ready for Christmas and sort of enjoying it, here are some pictures of our decorations.

    

        

 

Playing Catch Up

I just re-read my last post and, again, I'm sorry it's been so long. It was funny to read that I hated working full time, that has changed big time. I LOVE my job, I don't have trouble getting up in the morning anymore - it helps that the sun is up before I am now, thanks to Daylight Savings. I actually go back to working part time this week, which I'm really sad about. I didn't find out until late yesterday afternoon and I actually cried on the way home. I had been expecting to stay full time for at least a few more weeks, but the girl I've been filling in for is coming back on Monday. I'm really glad I agreed to stay on three days a week. I love the job, I really like the people and I need the money. Last week my parents, Thomas and I went to Missouri for Ian's graduation from Military Police school. We were only there overnight, but it was nice to be able to go.
This is a piece of the Berlin wall on base. Thomas looks grumpy because the sun was in his eyes, or so he says.

This is the tram that five people are supposed to squish in to ride to the top of the St. Louis arch. We bought tickets to go up, but the trams in front of us got stuck and we had a plane to catch. I'm so glad it wasn't us that got stuck in the trams, can we say claustrophobic?!?!
I guess that's really all I had to catch up on, I still haven't done much besides work, but I just have to say again I am much happier with my job now!

My Birthday

First of all, I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, but there really hasn't been anything that I've taken pictures of. I hate working full time, so I come home and veg and then it's time to go to bed so I can get up early and do it all over again. It sucks. But I did have a really fun birthday. Thursday night I went out with some friends from work. The two girls are my co-cashiers. But since I'm working full time in another office for the next month, I told them they had to come out with me for my birthday. So the guy is one of the dealers who buys cars from us. I don't know him as well as the other two do, but they invited him to come. I thought they were just joking, but he showed up! He even paid for dinner. And he guessed how old I was turning - nobody has ever done that, they always guess at least three years younger. So that was really fun.
Friday at work my co-workers bought me a cake and a card and made me leave early because it was my birthday. They bought a fairly small cake and then put 27 candles on it, but couldn't get them all lit without burning themselves because they were too close together. I came home and the table was all decorated by Chris, I added the cards I'd gotten over the last couple of days.
Chris had gotten a bunch of t-bone steaks really cheap awhile ago and he'd been wanting to grill them and I've been eating a lot of steak recently, so I had him grill the steaks and shrimp and zucchini for me for my birthday dinner. He really loves our grill, so he takes any chance he can!
This was a very first, he sang to me! He doesn't bake at all, so he's never done a cake for me. I'm not sure what the reason was for this one, but he bought a cake and lit the candles and sang to me!
This was my present from Roxy, a candle warmer and a candle. I wonder where she got the money to buy it, hahaha.

My present from Chris is a massage later today. We had massages on our last anniversary trip and I've been wanting another one ever since. He kept telling me to just go get one, but it's so frivilous I couldn't justify spending that much money just because. So I told him I wanted one for my birthday. It's the first time I've told him ahead of time what I want. So my birthday has lasted for three days now, I love it!!

Chris' New Best Friend

My great uncle's new wife brought her little dog to our latest family gathering, her name is Coco and she was very sweet and loved sitting on laps - especially when there was food being handed out.