goodbye 2013

Last day of 2013!   We've had a relaxing break at home, and even tackled a home project.  We now have 3 shelves in our workout room to be able to store and organize the cable box, new bluray player and dvds.  This project will make all the difference in getting us both to use that room more often - netflix streaming while I work out, yes please!

Its not as exciting as a holiday trip, but something that we'll enjoy for many days/weeks to come.  We've come a long way in our at home projects, found the studs pretty easily and only ended up with one extra hole in the wall (a HUGE win for us!)

We have no big plans for tonight, just fixing a pot roast, and will have champagne at midnight (or maybe at New York's midnight) and protect our big bad dog from the fireworks in the neighborhood.   We've been hearing them all week, and he's not a fan....

I had to post our pizza picture from yesterday, it kind of (if you squint) looks like a firework (or maybe an amoeba).   Its our first attempt at a completely homemade pizza.   We had a tough time getting the dough to spread out and part of the odd shape is because we then had a tough time getting it onto the pizza stone, it stuck to the peel.

The flavor of the crust was good, but since it was uneven parts were still doughy.   We ended up having it as an appetizer and ended up going out for a pizza....It was made with a lot of love, but we need to work on the skill level....we'll try again with the other part of the dough (and after reading a bit more on how to do it).....some of the most memorable meals are the cooking fails....

I'm glad this is one of the last meals of 2013 and not the first of 2014 -- we might worry that it shows what the year will be like, I try not to be superstitious but do find myself wanting to make the beginning of the year great to set the tone for the year.

Have fun celebrating and stay safe!!!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.    We've watched way too many Christmas movies, the classics for us are National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and Home Alone.  We also baked cookies (with mixed results), and this week have been able to celebrate with both sides of the family.

My last day to work for the year was Dec 20  -- hooray for working at a university!   We debated taking a trip, but decided to just enjoy the break, celebrate with our various groups and stay close to home.

Our festivities started on Saturday when we celebrated with Kevin's mom's side of the family -- lots of food, family and fun that day.   I'm not the biggest fan of a white elephant gift exchange, but learned to just take it as a fun activity and don't get my heart set on any one gift.   We do get a lot of fun stories from it each year.

My parents came up on Monday and we had Christmas with them, my sister and her fiance (still love that I can call him that now!) that day, complete with some homemade Texas chili -- sis' fiance and Kevin made the chili while my sis and I baked cookies - chocolate cookies with mint Hershey kiss on top, and a few with reese's bells instead (K's idea).  

We spent Christmas eve with my in-laws and exchanged gifts with them last night.  This actually worked pretty well so today we could focus on thei kids' gifts.   We went back over to my in-laws for Christmas dinner and opened gifts with our niece and nephew and played with them.  You really do need 3 adults for each kid, for the assembly of some of their gifts-- the dollhouse our niece received took several of us to assemble -- and was a hit with both kids!    I still hear about the Barbie McDonald's my dad had to assemble the middle of the night and all the stickers he had to put onto it...but boy, did I love that toy!

 Our gifts were easy open and go for our niece (thank you Melissa and Doug) and the books and puzzle we got our nephew will be enjoyed later in the year.

They were overwhelmed with all the toys and also loved playing in the box the dollhouse came in!

Its been a fantastic few days, and I know that I'll enjoy the next few days off....