Post Christmas

Well, we have almost finished Christmas! We meet with Greg's family on New Year's, and that will pretty much be all.

We started our Christmas with having some friends over for a small & intimate Christmas dinner, which really was a wonderful time. We fixed Prime Rib, Vegetable Au Te, fresh rolls, and a Cafe Chardoney. Our friends brought wonderful desserts and Tom & Jerry's to finish the evening off -- it was a fun and relaxing time!! Both of us have lived here in the Springs for almost 9yrs and have really made some great friends, which have become a form of family for us. What a great season to gather and enjoy those you love! We then headed out the next morning for my family's house and spent 3dys playing in the snow, opening presents, going to movies, & venturing to Estes for a winter drive/hike through the Park.

My highlight for Christmas this year: Greg developed several wedding photos and had them all matted, framed, & in collage form!!! They are simply wonderful!! I've got three collages to hang and have a few single frames as well to place around the house. We'd had a few pics done initially when our wedding was, but in the midst of moving, etc. pics couldn't be an option because of space. He then topped it off with new candles for my candelabras & new bubble bath from my most favorite store ever--Bath & Body Works. Ah yes...he did quite well. :) I on the other hand, had a travel bag personalized & "accessorized" for his reffing, as his old one was quite worn and not quite large enough. Now he has extra space and new ref shirts, etc. to go with it! He's already using it.

I know I've been a picture posting fool lately, but here's some photos of our holidays! Enjoy(especially you Grandma!!)....

The Christmas Dinner Table

Greg opening his new reffing bag

This was my 'early' Christmas present: Greg built a mantel for one of our fireplaces!! I love it handsome. :)

This was the first picture I opened. He had it framed with the matte all our friends signed at the wedding.

Here we are 'matching' for Christmas morning

My little sister with Milo

The first collage I opened!!

Our '2006 Christmas in Estes' photo

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm Looking At A White Christmas

All and all we had a great party. All of our friends, and their friends, and their friends friends.... oh yes. It was awesome. AND...my eggnog punch and pumpkin cheesecake was a HIT! (you're welcome Micah. lol. Anytime I can bring "glory" back to the family as far as dessert cooking goes, I'm happy to do it!) It was great to have friends together and to just enjoy the Christmas music, board games, food, and funny stories. The menu consisted of:

• Steak & Chicken Fajitas
• Salads & Queso with Chips
• Egg Nog Punch
• Cheescakes and other sweet delights
• Several appetizers and other snacks of taste

Today we finally got outside to start digging away from being locked down for the past 48hrs literally. The entire city went on shut down and even the malls, banks, and PO's closed. Now, I realize that living out here in the Forest that we would get more weather than we did when in Rockrimmon, but seriously -- this was our 3rd major storm since October, and every time we've gotten almost tripple what people get in the city--especially those on the West side and downtown. Not so much the North because they seem to be close enough to the Palmer Divide (we sit on it). Needless to say, after seeing the pics, you will understand why we will still be having a White Christmas come Sunday & Monday!

Now the drumroll...here are pics from the party and some from the past two days of weather:

Greg & Rick are just warming up!

Our friends, Jim & Carol. Don't they look so in love??!

Friends mingling

Greg prepping more meat for the fajitas

More friends: Jason & Jess. We had a blast guys!

Egg Nog Punch w/Spiced Captain Morgan!

Our friends Bob & Angela from choir

My Brother & Sister-in-law, as well as our friend, Nancy

Yet another grand friend from choir, James

And now pics from the storm the past 2 days:

Above pics were from Wednesday. Pic 1 is how much snow we had up against the house by afternoon. Pic 2 is Greg shoveling off a pathway for Milo to get up to the grass. Pic 3 is Milo stuck in the snow on back porch, as we gave up keeping up with the snowfall and the 55mph winds that lasted for over 48hrs.

Here is Greg out on the driveway today (Thursday) attempting to plow through.

I was standing in the middle of the road with snow up to the top of my thighs--this car didn't make it up the street yesterday!!

One of our neighbors works for CAT and called one of his colleagues to come out and front load our street!! It took him a few hours to clear the 4ft of snow on the road.

Hrs later we're still out shoveling and all the neighbors were just helping everyone else get dug out at this point. :)

I was sitting in a 8ft drift taking a break from shoveling

More plowing of our street outside our house.

Really this is the most snow I have seen in a very long time. Though, we've decided that the way the weather gets out here that we will be getting a snow blower, because all 3 storms thus far have produced at least a foot and lots of shoveling time!

Tomorrow we will be back to finishing Christmas shopping and getting our house ready for our Christmas Eve dinner with friends and Christmas Day with family.

Date Night!

Here I am sitting at Starbucks -- with my husband. Now, I do believe that I got the better end of the deal: I don't have to do work! I am purely entertaining myself while I drink my Chai Tea Egg Nog Latte. He on the other hand, is sitting here grading papers that he must have in before he leaves town again for more basketball games.

We did have quite the little "adventure", if you will, on our way over here this eve. For our business in the summer time, Greg has his pick-ups and trailer and all the mowers, landscaping machines, etc. and usually they sit in our front on the 3rd garage space. Well, in the winter with our Nazi of homeowners association, we have to move EVERYTHING. It technically isn't "Country Club appearance". lol. I have no idea why! :)~~ And we've been cited 3 times now. So last weekend Greg went and secured a rental unit for everything until March. Now for the story: Naturally, the trailer is un-licensed for starters :), the ramp doesn't have the latches on it to hold it up, so there's a bungy cord sort of thing holding it upright, and the wires aren't hooked up, so nothing flashes when he's driving/turning, etc. So I have to follow him to the storage unit. Well, we barely get out of our neighborhood and the ramp falls down scraping with flying sparkes, so I flash my lights at him, we pull over and then there's only 1 more bungy to hold it in place for 2mi. In the midst of all this, it's dark and we're seriously rushing because we want to get it fixed before Johnny Sherrif Law comes driving by and stops to check on us (with an un-licensed trailer) We did eventually make it to the storage unit, but once we were there, they'd plowed snow in front of all the parking lots, so the trailer got stuck in the snow, and well you get the point by now.... :) FINALLY, we finish and head to Starbucks. Now, this was just funny to me because here I am in my car switching from left to right, left to right to shine my lights to help him back into the spot without hitting anyone else and I'm seriously looking like a clueless blonde (which partially I was clueless!), the pickup is getting stuck, and I can't lift worth a darn right now, so he's doing everything. He's laughing about it now...anyhow, my funny story for the evening. [especially posted for you Ceccy, who needs a laugh...]

12% in Five Years!

Yep. I am sitting here drinking Egg Nog and posting maps of places I've been. I stopped at Safeway tonight on my way back and picked up a signature soup, french bread, & egg nog -- comfort food for a VERY long day that I'm glad is done! I will be back tomorrow and I have a date to look forward to!! I love you Greg :)

So, if you think about it, it's pretty amazing that in a 5 year time period, I visited 12% of the world! And..it's been 3 years since my last overseas trip. To note, I didn't include anyplace that was just a "fly through" or "layover". Any country highlighted has been lived in for at a minimum of 2days or more. :)

And here is where I've been in our good ole US of A:

To make your very own Countries & States visited, click here.

Well, now that this highlight is over and I've thoroughly amused myself, I do believe I will call my husband, go to bed and listen to Christmas music.

The Final Christmas Touches

Well, Greg got the lights onto the house yesterday. He finished in the dark, but nonetheless, we have lights on the house!! Nice to know that our decorating is offically done. Here's some pics:

Milo wishing he could go on the roof too!

Well, another week has begun and I have a short trip to take before the weekend comes and then it's our Christmas party!!

White Elephant!

Yea!! My present arrived today! I participated in an online white elephant exchange organized by my friend at HalfPintHouse. Here's what Jennifer sent me:

Here's the goods before I opened them..

Lo and behold it's a cookbook to romance my husband & a cute Christmas pad and decoration!

A close-up of the book:

The notepad and snowman were so cute! And thank you, thank you, thank you, for the cookbook!! It absolutely made me laugh out loud when I saw it. And here's why it's so funny that you should send it -- Greg is always teasing me saying "Gosh I wish you'd cook more around this house." Totally in jest because, really, he prefers to do the cooking and though I love it, I'm always up for his cooking. So, he saw that and we both just cracked up!! Guess, I need to get in the kitchen and start cooking!! :) Ha! It was great! Thank you!!!

I mailed my White Elephant on Friday, so mine should be getting hers any day!

Keeping Above Water

Well, I've survived the week after being gone from my office for 12 days! Between traveling and having the flu, I've just been swimming this week with stuff. Am very glad for the weekend. I've finalized my travel schedule for January and made my deadlines for Christmas gifting for our Agency. I've got 6 clients currently that I will be getting baskets done for and delivering over the next week and a half. Am very excited for this!

This weekend my husband and I will be FINALLY getting the Christmas lights on the house. Between the weather and his travel for bball, it has been delayed a few times. :) Will also be getting the house cleaned and ready for our Holiday Party next weekend. I think we've got just about all 50 or so people RSVP'd, so this will be quite the event! Will be sure to post pics afterwards.

I've ordered one of Greg's Christmas presents, and am getting the menu ready for Christmas, as we're hosting this year for my family and any friends who're around.

Oh yes...one more thing.. I AM MAILING MY WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT THIS WEEK(tomorrow, actually)!! Apologies for the delay. I, however, had to find the right kind of packaging. :) Will post pics, so keep looking.