finally friday

A few more tidbits for you from our week so you can know a little more besides how chaotic it is right now.

1. We got 10 inches of snow last night (plus a few hours worth of rain before that, which promptly froze). David is on his 6th cold/ snow day, and how many have I had? None. At least this means he is around to help me shovel my car out/ start it in the middle of the night/ let me drive his tank to work instead of my little lightweight.

2. I drove passed this on my way in this morning. People pushing their cars up a hill on the highway. I thought we were better than that here in MN and this sort of thing only happened in Atlanta (in our defense though, I did not see a single abandoned car).

3. What better time to book a week-long trip to Antigua than in the middle of a blizzard though, right? Too bad the trip won't be until this summer, when our schedules allow longer vacations, but at least it gives us something to look forward to as we shovel the driveway for the 3rd time in a day.

4. Speaking of trips, this summer/ fall is looking up: four weddings! It's about time our friends started getting married! Four might not seem like that much to any other twenty-somethings out there, but I can count on three fingers the number I have been to since college, and that includes our own.

Four is all I have for you, I've got to get back to planning my route home that does not include skidding on the ice on the freeway or getting stuck on unplowed side-streets. Wish me luck...

chaos

Life is a little hectic right now. Full of moving, painting, snow storms, state tournaments, cleaning, cleaning, and then more cleaning. Pretty much this move seems to be coming at the worst time. But we are in the home stretch. For better or worse only 8 days left until we are officially moved.

Between the two houses we have essentially 2 functioning rooms (not counting the bathrooms), which means there are 2 rooms, set up and organized enough to actually sit/sleep in without having to hold a box on your lap or sit in a pile of dust (from a demo-project to be clear, not from my general lack of cleaning). This meant that David ate dinner on the kitchen floor last night. But at least it was a home cooked meal- we haven't abandoned our stomachs and our wallets yet in an attempt to save an extra hour a day and just get takeout.

So bear with me for 1 more week as we hunker down and move the remaining few boxes to the new place and get the old place in tip top shape for our renter.

christmas 2013

I thought I would be stopping in today to tell you about a fun-filled weekend in La Crosse and Madison Wisconsin with my cousin and some college friends in from DC, but plans fell through last minute, and long story short, the Madison portion of our trip got cancelled (even though we had a non-refundable hotel room). We did however get to spend a night in La Crosse visiting Syd. However no pics were taken, so there's no proof of our 24 our jaunt to WI, right?

Since I have no weekend documentation and nothing else new to share with you, besides maybe some painting updates, now seems like as good of time as any to do a little Christmas recap. It is practically spring after all (lies, it was -11 without windchill when I left for work this morning), so I really should get on with it before the next holiday rolls along.

This year, like last, we ended up celebrating Christmas six times. We are at the age where we still get together with our grandparents/ extended families to celebrate since we are the oldest of the grandchildren and we don't quite want to give up the traditional celebrations with our parents. So we celebrate six times. This makes for a busy holiday season, but as far as I am concerned it is still totally worth the additional stress.

We get the best of all the worlds celebrating this way- we get a more sophisticated adults dinner on one side, and a crazier kid-filled potluck on another; we get to spend Christmas morning just us two making our own new traditions, yet we get to re-live some of our favorite childhood traditions with our parents; most importantly, we get to see and celebrate Christmas with all of our loved ones (at least the ones in the Midwest).

Here are some pics from our various Christmas celebrations. Unfortunately I didn't remember to whip the camera out at all of the gatherings (I'll have to round up some from the missing events if I ever want to make one of those family yearbooks I keep talking about).

Christmas morning, the last time at our current house.

 The puppies got to open their stockings first.

They really enjoyed their "candy canes."

David's turn next!

Our morning finished up with our breakfast. This year we opted for something that could be made ahead of time since we had to hustle along to my grandparents afterwards, a spinach and cheese strata.

At one of our extended family celebrations we tried out a new game (usually it's just the dice game). I was skeptical at first, but watching everyone (grandma included!) try to open up a tightly duct-taped present with oven mitts on was highly entertaining.

Our last celebration was with my parents and we finally got a family pic in (Winston wasn't too happy about it, but hey, at least Franklin doesn't look as awkward as he does in last year's).

 
David made us a delicious dinner- mussels in a white wine broth for an appetizer, followed by salmon and green beans for the main course.

I'm tired just from looking back through those pictures, although I could go for some of that Christmas food right about now.

hallelujah

Cue the chorus, pour some champagne, find some confetti, do whatever you do to get your celebration on because at LONG last, the hallway project is done. And it only took 8 months!

It really wasn't all that hard of a project. There were just a few snaffus along the way- Home Depot cutting the boards wrong, not having the right size drill bit, breaking 4,278 drill bits, etc. And of course a dozen other more pressing projects that popped up along the way. But, with less than a month left to enjoy it, the project can be crossed off the ol' to-do list. I'd probably even do it again if I had to do it over, but I'm not sure David would agree.

Let's take a look.

Most importantly, the puppies like it. And yes I know it is time to take my wreath down.

A little close-up action.

But really the most important thing is that it is immensely useful. Already a few days in 
and I have only found a coat not on a hook once.

 And now a pseudo-panoramic view. 

Also, see how different the paint looks in each room with different lighting?

We both are really pleased with how it turned out. I may or may not be scheming up a place for something similar in the new house (hey, now I know what I'm doing). Unfortunately there isn't a spot for a full-on replica.

I was going to break this project down for you all, remember I started to here, but clearly you don't want advice from me on how to tackle a project like this. If you are interested in your own wall-o-hooks, go here. It is where I drew my inspiration and got most of my direction from.

play time

The puppies got a new toy last night. And no, it is not just an empty water bottle (although Franklin has gotten endless entertainment out of those before, and empty tupperware, toilet paper rolls, etc).

I simply cut a small hole in the bottle and put a few treats inside. This was one of their first attempts at figuring it out. Winston clearly didn't get it (although at times he would follow Franklin around with it, hoping to snag a treat for himself), but Franklin took to it right away and could have spent all night pushing it around the house if I would have kept putting treats in it. He even found it sufficiently entertaining when there was only dog food inside. I think we found some solid puppy-entertainment.