Sunday, December 21, 2008

Two Christmases


This Saturday we had our first of two Christmases. Since we will be in Knoxville at my parents' house on the 25th, we had early festivities with Tony's parents and his brother Jon and his wife Jennifer (who have been married a year now! Congrats!).

We started it off with dog Christmas - they all got squeakers, and Roxy got a giant sheep - that isn't supposed to wear out as easy - it's super tough!

Michele made a delicious Greek feast - pastichio and baklava - can't go wrong with that!


And she started a new tradition for all of us that will continue for years, and be especially nice once little ones are there too. We all had to put on reindeer ears -- to the delight of my husband -- and we all took turns reading The Christmas Story (the religious one--no Santas involved). Then we got some fancy presents!

The holiday light display in our area is only a few miles away, so we set off to see that. A family with a little land and a lot of patience hosts a holiday display where you drive thru their property and see all of their creations. So many of the cutouts are made by hand - it's pretty incredible. And there were like 100 cars there, and people only know about this place by word of mouth. They should totally start taking donations for charity.





Although early, nothing puts you in the Christmas spirit more than spending time with those you love.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Seriously??

It's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's snowing in Arizona, but it is 70 degrees here. Really. I could technically wear my bathing suit outside today and be fairly comfortable -- not that that would ever happen, it's bad enough when it's summer and I have been mentally preparing, but not actually preparing myself for that leap of faith...




Not that I expect much here in GA in terms of a snowy winter wonderland. But at least make it cold enough to justify my wearing of a festive scarf! At this point, I'm going to have to find a tacky Christmas t-shirt to wear, instead of a bedazzled sweatshirt. Turning on the AC shouldn't be a part of Christmas morning. *Etc*


I think last week I was complaining because it was so cold. I'm going to change this blog to a weather-complaint-forum.


But come on, weather! You have a week to get your act together.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Outnumbered

For us, it's not unusual for there to be more dogs than people in a given social situation. Often, we will spend time with Mikey and Kacy, who have their two goldens who are sisters - Shayla and Kaly, Kacy's parents, who have their golden Abby, Mikey's parents, who have the giant golden Sydney, and who often watch Mikey's sister's little dog Bella (the only non-light dog of the bunch), and Kacy's aunt and uncle, who have their white dog Elsa. And of course we have Roxy and Sandy. This time there were 7 people, and 8 dogs.This weekend we took the dogs out to Line Creek, which, as the name clearly suggests, is a creek that runs through the woods just down the road from our house. It is tucked away, so there are never too many people there, and we let the dogs run wild. Saturday was no exception, as it was pretty cold and overcast, we only ran into one person.
Of course, the dogs head straight for the water, which I'm sure was frigid. Slippery ground and running dogs...


Although not as pretty as it is in the summer, Roxy was completely worn out after doing water sprints with Abby, and that makes us happy parents.



Here is a short video I took of the madness.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Christmas Spirit


Tony and I got free tickets to the Nutcracker at the Fox on Friday. It was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. One more week of work, then it's on to Knoxville for the week of Christmas.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Dogs Behaving Badly...

I just wanted to share a few pictures from this week. We had our friends and Tony's parents over on Tuesday night for my birthday.
(Michele pretty much nailed it with the Christmas ornament!)
Mostly I wanted to share Roxy's obsession with the pom poms that hang off the adorable slippers that Kacy and Mikey gave me. Seriously, she is obsessed -- I have to remain motionless while I have them on, otherwise, when I walk, they swing and she lunges at my feet... :)




(Even Sandy was getting in on the action!)
I am hoping to take our family Christmas card picture this weekend -- talk about last minute -- but I'm pretty sure a certain dog will not cooperate. You might be receiving a lovely photo card of me and Sandy smiling, Tony pretending to not hate the idea of taking this type of photo, and the blur of Roxy trying to run away. We send our love.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Silver & Gold (and Red, and Pink, and Green, and...)


Although I've had our holiday decor up for some time now, I am lazy, and have actually had work to do at work (weird, huh?) and have yet to post pics until now. Not that it's anything spectacular, of course. If it were, I would have posted about it way sooner!


I have a random assortment of decorations I've gotten as gifts, on sale post-Christmas, or made (scary thought). One of the things I don't like about our house is the lack of surfaces. We don't really have any bookshelves or window sills or extra table tops to display things on -- this is a good thing, if you ask Tony. It's not that I have a ton of knick knacks to display, but at Christmas, it leaves me little room to "decorate."


So I end up just sorta setting the stuff I have around the house. I have no theme - no rhyme or reason - just stuff that I have determined is festive. We have our mantel (gracing the '70's basement den stone fireplace) and that's about it. But nonetheless, here are some pictures.



(my sis Courtney made this tree for me last year - those are tiny seed beads stuck into a cone individually - loves it!)

I've seen lots of pictures from others' holiday houses -- a white theme, all silver, feathers and natural, etc. And I can totally appreciate the style of this. However, we aren't exactly rolling in it right now (who is??) and I will have to make do with my randomness. I'm very grateful of what we do have.


Also, I'm a mismatched ornament fan. All the ones I have mean something to me - or I just think they are pretty! A lot were stolen from my family tree when I left for college, and a lot I stole from Tony's mom last year :) I love ornaments and want to keep collecting them, maybe even get crafty and make some... Maybe in our next house, I will have multiple trees - one for the sentimental ornaments, and others sporting a color scheme, and the fancy matching ornament sets I have been drooling over at Target.



I love Christmas, and it's so crazy I only have to work next week, then have the whole next week off! Time is really flying....

That being said, we have yet to put up any lights outside -- it was raining the weekend that we decorated, and it's dark by the time we get home. We have a bazillion lights (thanks to the 32 boxes of lights I snagged on sale last year for our May wedding) but I'm thinking it might now be worth it now... I have little wreaths on the windows, that's good enough.


ps - of course the pictures don't do it justice - you can't really capture the twinkly glow of lights with a flash :)

pps - Tony went through a nutcracker-loving phase last year - thus, everyone and their brother got him one as a gift! This year they've made the mantle, but next year, I'm not so sure...

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Way to My Heart...

Tony knows it:


Birthday dinner with friends

Tennessee's Finest


This past weekend I had the pleasure of hitting up Nashvegas for the weekend with two of my favorite people - JoB and Adrienne. Since I was coming from Atlanta, they drove separately from Knoxville and we met up there.


Although it was frigidly cold, we had our sc(y)arfs in tow and braved going out on the town. Mind you, it was like 30 - which, yes, is freezing for us. Highlights of the weekend included the matching pj pants Adrienne brought for us (we are nerds!),

eating, seeing some great live music (and some not so great),

learning a line dance or two,

taking random pictures (of course),
eating, people watching, George Washingtons, and going to sketchy gas stations where we feared for our lives. :)

I had a great time seeing them, and we have decided to make trips like these bi-annually, at the least. As soon as we are all millionaires, we will graduate to out of state, exotic locales - but for now, we will do the best we can-- within driving distance!


ps- Adam, I'm glad you enjoy reading this! :) Also, never stop working for Marriott, we want to keep using you for your discount!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Tree Farm

I blame it on food coma, or perhaps the fact that I had five days off of work, and did nothing but spend money, lay around, and of course, eat. I have been slacking on my updates, which I'm sure everyone has been terribly upset by... anyway...


In keeping with my desire to decorate for Christmas in a timely fashion this year, we went to cut down our tree this past weekend. Although Thanksgiving itself was a clear and sunny day, the rest of the weekend was pretty miserable. It wasn't really cold, but it poured rain for three days straight. Very depressing.

Finally on Sunday, we headed out to the tree farm with Mikey and Kacy and raincoats to get a tree. Since our ceilings are so low, we had to get a baby one - 6ft ish. I know some people can't have real trees because of allergies, or don't really want to go to the trouble of having one, but I absolutely love having a live tree. It's so green and smells so fresh - I don't mind the little bit of needle dustbusting that it requires (that, and I love to dustbust anyway - weird).

And my favorite part is getting the free trimmings from the firs to use for decorating (and they smell the best!)
I also "festivized" our house with the hodge podge of decorations I had from past years, and Tony will be putting the lights up outside this weekend. :) Yay for the holidays!
And here's a picture of Roxy thrown in for good measure. She soooooo wants to drag the tree skirt around the living room, but so far has only sniffed. (She's obsessed with anything white - and fuzzy)
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