Christmas 2010

Christmas was very busy for us this year and we didn't even travel out of town.  The week started with my parents coming up to Chicago for us to take them to the airport.  We had to get up at about 4:30 am to get them to O'hare in time.  They also left Oscar with us for the week.  While both dogs were pretty good all week, they liked to get us up very early so they could play with each other. 

Christmas Eve we headed to Barrington to celebrate Luke's sisters birthday with Anna, Dave, Jeanne and John.  From there we went to Luke's aunts house for Christmas Eve festivities and to celebrate with Luke's Dad's side of the family.  Christmas morning Luke and I woke up in our own house for the first time in 5 years.  That was wonderful to finally be home for Christmas!  But later that day we went back to Barrington to celebrate Christmas with Luke's Mom's side of the family.  Most of his aunts and uncles and cousins were there so it was really good to see everyone.

We haven't even celebrated Christmas with my family yet but that is yet to come January 8-10.

Happy Birthday Anna!

Jeanne loved the gift I made her!

John with his daughter Jamie and grandson Joey

We definitely had a white Christmas but I am sure glad all that snow has melted!

Tristan, Guy, Heather and Brenda

Mary Kay, John, Jon, and Chris

Luke's cousins Lizie, Sophie, Sara, and Maggie

Me, Lizzie and Maggie

Santa came to visit the kids!

Luke's cousins Max, Jon and Chirs

Christmas Party 2010

A couple weekends ago Luke and I had a bunch of friends over for a Christmas party.  We hadn't had a lot of people over since our Memorial Day party so we decided to have another party.  I made a bunch of food and we ended up playing games most of the evening.  It was really good to see all of our friends we haven't seen in awhile.  I forgot to take pictures for most of the night but got a couple at the end.  There were some other people there too but I didn't get pictures of everyone.

Christmas Decorating

A couple weekends ago, Luke and I put up our Christmas tree.  We got a 8 foot Noble Fir (which I had never heard of before) but it looks just like the Frasier or Douglas Firs but seems to be a lot more filled out.  We were a little afraid it wouldn't fit in our living room, but you know me, I had to have the biggest tree I could find.  Luckily we have nine foot ceilings and we had the guy at Home Depot cut off about 6 inches from the bottom to make sure it would fit.  The sign said it was 8 foot, but I think it was closer to 9 before we trimmed it down.  I think it turned out pretty nice, but the picture don't do it justice. 

I love decorating for Christmas.  Why is it that I can spend an entire weekend getting stuff out of boxes just to put it back again in a month.  Oh well.  It is worth it.  But one thing for sure is I am sick of moving.  I had just enough decorations for our house in Nashville, but now they just don't seem to fit here.  I can't wait to sometime soon buy another house we want to stay in for a long time so I can perfect my christmas decorating.

Even Bradley enjoyed watching us decorate for Christmas!

Caribbean Cruise Vacation Post #4

Sorry this is taking soooo long to get all these pictures from our vacation up on the blog, but life has been pretty hectic lately.  At least I am posting more frequently than once a month, which is what I thought I might do when I started it. 

Day 6 was spent in Dominica.  There we went to see Trafalgar Falls, a pair of about 200 foot falls up in the mountains.  It is so bizarre all the different climates you can encounter in the Caribbean.  Aruba was almost desert like and Dominica is a rain forest, getting over 300 inches of rain a year.  Which by the way we also got a good taste of as it poured on us the entire day we were there.   The excursion on Dominica was pretty short so we spent time on the ship.  We played mini golf in the rain and later, after it stopped raining, we finally got to go rock climbing.   

Day 7 and the final day was spent in St. Thomas.  Actually, we spent most of the day on St. John, as that is where we booked our excursion.  But either way, St. Thomas and St. John are some of the most beautiful islands in the caribbean.  We took a boat from St. Thomas to St. John.  We went on a hike on St. John and ended up on honeymoon beach, a private beach on St. John you can only get to by hiking there.  On the way to St. John we got to see Michael Jordan's house located on St. Thomas.  We also saw Kenny Chesney's house, but I didn't get a picture of that since it was soooo far up on a mountain top I couldn't get a good picture.

Finally the last day of our trip was spent in Puerto Rico.  We decided to stay an extra day after the cruise ended and see the island since we didn't have to be back to work until Tuesday.  I am glad we did too.  We stayed on land, finally, after being on a boat for a week.  We went to a resort just a little outside of San Juan.  We pretty much just relaxed on the beach as the weather was finally really great.  We got to enjoy one more nice day before returning to the COLD Chicago weather. 

Overall, we had a lot of fun and miss it already as we have been home for only a few weeks and already have several inches of snow on the ground:(

Trafalgar Falls, Dominica

Honeymoon Beach, St. John

One of the beautiful beaches of St. John

Michael Jordan's House in St. Thomas

The last night of our cruise

The beach at our Resort in Puerto Rico