Sunday, December 20, 2009

"Christmas Day!"

Because of our work schedules, yesterday we the only morning that Mark and I both had free to open our stockings. In the past we have just given each other an ornament each year but this year we decided to add small stocking gifts as well. It was fun to look for little stuff all year to surprise Mark with. I found him a Sheriff star, a grow-you-own lizard, some of his favorite candies and snack dips, a talking BBQ fork, and a tin Anheuser-Busch sign that I found at an antique mall. Mark did some excellent shopping as well and I now have lots of new stamps and stickers to create with, some wonderful shea butter socks, some foamy soap (I love to play with it!), and a beautiful painted cat!

Last night Mark also surprised me with a trip to the historic Artcraft Theater in Franklin. Last night's movie was, A Muppet Christmas Carol. The whole program there was very fun! Before the actual movie they had skits, contests, a little movie about bears, a cartoon, and THEN the movie. What fun!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Bowling, Downtown, and Reindeer

This week is Mark's vacation week from work. So today we had a "Vacation Day!!" The day started off with a delicious homemade breakfast cooked by Mark and then we spent the morning getting some much needed laundry and stuff around the house done. Then we spent the afternoon bowling. It was fun, we hadn't been since our rehearsal dinner in May, but we both bowled really well! Dinner was baked spaghetti, a household favorite!

And then, the best part of the day, we finally went downtown to the circle to look at the Christmas lights - I have been asking since before Thanksgiving! I love when they turn the monument into the giant tree! It's amazing!
We made sure to take our annual Christmas light picture underneath the monument's light tent.

After that we thought we had seen the best parts of Christmas at the Circle until we saw REINDEER! I am not sure that I had ever seen one outside of a zoo before. Not only did we see it but we also go to pet it!! She was so soft and had the longest hair! It was an amazing day out!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Movie Project

I think it's time to mention our movie project. We decided over the summer that since we don't have television (we have the actual set but we just use it to watch movies) that we would take this time in our lives to watch every Academy Award Winning Best Picture together. Even though we've each seen around 30 of them individually, we have started all over to watch them together.

The first award was given out in 1928...so we have quite a few to see. We've started with the ones that we own and that we were able to borrow from our parents. So far we've seen seven: The Godfather (1972), Rocky (1976), Dances With Wolves (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Schindler's List (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), and Chicago (2002).

After Chicago, one of my least favorite movies of all time, we decided to start doing theme nights to make the unbearable ones more fun. The first one we saw was Dances With Wolves which we watched in South Dakota where the events of the film actually happened and the filming was done. We had an Alfredo Pasta night when we watched The Godfather and then had brats, sauerkraut, and butter kuchen for Schindler's List. The theme nights have made it much more fun!!

Here's our invite to you - go through your movie collection, find an Academy Award winner, let us known when you're free to watch it with us and come on over - we'll supply the food! I'm going to try to take pictures and to post updates on how we're doing!

Monday, December 7, 2009

St. Charles Christmas

This past weekend I went home, while Mark visited VU to catch up with his college friends, and Mama, Lu, and I went to St. Charles, MO for the day. One of Mom's friends had planned the trip and the ladies were kind enough to let Lucy and me tag along. We enjoyed an afternoon of shopping, homemade lunch, a "parade" of Santas from around the world, and found an incredible scrapbooking store! In the evening, we went to a parade that followed Mary (on a donkey!) and Joseph through the town looking for a place to stay. In the end, a shopkeeper told them they can have the stable out back and then all of the parade moved to a park for the Living Nativity. Then we all sang Christmas Carols around the Yule Log Bonfire with carolers dressed in old fashioned clothing:
We arrived home late Saturday night and headed straight to bed so we could make it up for church. After church the four of us went to Pizza King for lunch and then to get our Christmas tree! I was excited because this year I got to pick it! I am so thankful that Mama and Dad waited for us to come home to get the tree and to decorate the house because now it actually feels like Christmas!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

"Two Hours Later..."

As Mark and I were moving into our apartment, he went through each room with a checklist of problems and then made a list for the maintenance men to work on. One of the issues that he wanted addressed on move in day was the leak in the shower. The maintenance men took a look at it and said they just needed to go get some parts and that they would be back within two hours. That was June 1.

Yesterday, December 1, they came to fix the leak in our shower. Yes, true story, apparently in our little corner of the world a "two hour fix" is truly a six months and two hour fix.

So, now, mostly thanks to the hours that Mark spent in our bathtub yesterday, and the ten minutes of a maintenance man, we have a beautiful, shiny, newly caulked, leak free shower! And it only took "two hours"