A good time was had by all!

Ah..another Christmas come and gone. I think the most exciting time of the year is Christmas morning. Even though I am 28 years old (counting the days until I turn 29 for the first time), I couldn't sleep the night before Christmas. Was it the chocolate fondue I had at my coworker's house...couldn't have been that! How about the coffee that I had to wash down all the fondue...nope, no way that keeps me awake... I'm convinced that I was just excited about Santa and all the other Christmas magic! I woke up at 2:30am on Christmas morning..and went out in the living room so I didn't wake Seth. I turned on the tree and was watching Christmas shows on tv...and who comes out into the living room but my sweet, sound-sleeping husband! He tried to go back to bed, without success, and was reading for the next couple of hours. I think we both had the Christmas spirit so badly we just couldn't stand it!

Anyway, we managed to wait until about 8:30am before we tore into everything. And what a fun Christmas it was! :) Despite the fact that we weren't with our extended families (this was the first year that we weren't with one or the other), it was a really fun time...and totally felt like Christmas!! We went over to our friends' house for Christmas (Day) dinner, and had spent Christmas Eve with one of my coworkers and her family...even though we weren't doing anything that we traditionally do, I think it felt like Christmas because we were together (and because it was snowing...hard!). Now, we're back to work, the leftover treats are all in the garbage (although I may have had a final bite of everything as it went into the can...), and we're anxiously awaiting another party where we can say goodbye to 2008, and welcome 2009!

We can't see the lawn anymore...

Here's a picture of Mrs. Claus for your Christmas enjoyment! From everyone I've talked to, it seems like the snow is hitting the entire country - or at least the entire Northwest! I know that it's creating havoc for all of the holiday travellers (and I really hope it backs off a bit and allows everyone to get where they're going for Christmas), but I just think it's so pretty! Maybe I'm able to enjoy it more because I'm not going anywhere, but I think the snow, this year, has put me in the Christmas spirit more than in years past. As soon as it started snowing, all I wanted to do was bake cookies and watch Christmas movies. I've already seen Christmas Vacation, White Christmas, part of A Christmas Carol, the Garfield Christmas special (which used to be my all-time favorite...and I hadn't seen it for years!!), some kids show called Cranberry Christmas, endless cheesy Christmas movies on Lifetime, ABC Family, and the Disney Channel, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas....can you believe I haven't seen Charlie Brown yet? In fact, I'm having so much fun with the whole Christmas thing, I'm finding it very hard to focus on work this week. Good thing it's a short one. I hope all of you are feeling as Christmas-y as I am!

The lawn!

Oh crumb. Apparently, it's been just under a month since my last post (just barely under!) At long last, I have pictures of the lawn. It's looking lush and green! In fact, I think it's likely the greenest lawn in the neighborhood right now. Still a bit patchy in front, but we're hoping that fills in better in the spring.

To catch everyone up on all the other odds and ends in our lives, we had a nice Thanksgiving (my parents came to visit for the week and we had some other friends join us for the turkey dinner on Thursday). Seth and my Dad deep fried a turkey (actually, 2 so we would have lots of leftovers), and did a wonderful job. The only scare was Thanksgiving morning when we opened the box to assemble the fryer and discovered the hardware and instructions were missing. Thank goodness for WalMart and their being open 24-hours that day! :) Other than that, it's been work, work, work. Our company Christmas parties are this weekend (one Friday and one Saturday), and we're going to dinner and bowling for both! The other exciting thing we did this week was booking our flight to Europe! We're going to Europe for 12 days next spring...and now we REALLY have to go because the tickets are non-refundable!

I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll try to be better about this thing!