Goodbye 2010! (posted a few days late)

Today is the last day of my 12 day vacation and the last day of 2010! As a write this I look around at my house and I have new furniture, a cute husband playing video games (yes, he’s 30 years old), listening to Country music, our puppy sleeping at my feet and my fat cat sitting on my lap making me take a break every 5 minutes for some petting. I have never been so happy and feel so blessed! Hope everyone can say they had just as good of 2010 as we did!

Time has FLOWN by this week on vacation. I kept saying I would update my blog, clean the house, decorate the house, spend time with my husband being lazy, and scrapbook update. Unfortunately the blog was the only thing that didn’t get done on my list for the vacation! But good news is – we had a fantastic time off and feel refreshed and ready for another year J (Besides, it’s still officially 2010 and I have an hour until I have to get in the shower and get pretty for NYE!) So here goes a long "end of the year" blog...

First off, for about 4 hours last week on Wednesday there was a great dane puppy for sale named Melmann Mead! (not really but man was he in the dog house - the BAD dog house that is). He's been such a good boy and we've been letting him stay in the basement (unfinished basement) and not cooped up in his crate. He's been fantastic! Well... that is until Wednesday. We left the house for lunch and were gone about 20 minutes. (Keep in mind he's stayed by himself for hours alone and didnt do anything!) We got a call from our house alarm system saying our house has gotten broken into. In pure panic we sped home to find Melmann hiding in his crate and the insulation next to the door and alarm wire pulled out of the wall! We have NO idea what got into him! All i can say is he is one lucky boy he is cute and we forgive quickly. Boy it was a mess. I guess we deserved it with a 90 pound 6 month old... so don't be fooled - no matter how good you're dog is - he is still a BABY! Believe it or not i didn't even get a picture of it, i was SO mad i just didn't even think about it! So here is he in his new spot (top of stairs):

Again - don't be fooled, he is plotting something i'm sure while he is sitting there.

So anyway, on to our fun times during the past week or two:

Kelseys Wedding

My good friend from KC married her sweet fiance, Adam, on Saturday December 19^th. It was beautiful! I’ve never been to a winter wedding but with the red bridesmaid dresses, red roses, Christmas decorations at the church, and winter theme reception – I LOVED it! It was great. And of course, Kels looked absolutely stunning!

I obviously didn't get the spray tan memo from my girlfriends! Yikes, I need some sun in my life! (I blame it on my eye surgery and ban against tanning beds)

Christmas Cookie Party

Due to my crazy work schedule in December I didn’t have one free weekend night to have our 3^rd Annual Tacky Christmas Sweater Party so… we decided to have a few friends over to eat chili and make Christmas cookies. The simple nights with good friends are just the best! We had two couples over and we wore pajamas, made chili and grilled cheese sandwiches, and decorated Christmas cookies and cupcakes. Then we watched a movie. It was a great way to start our vacation on Sunday evening!

Getting ready for the decorating:

I bought a few cookie cutters from Crate & Barrel and was SO excited for them.. well it turns out they were pancake cutters.. so needless to say we had life size mitten cookies :) Live and learn. I guess one day my kiddos will get mitten and snowmen pancakes!

It kind of looks like eight year olds decorated these but it was a lot of fun!

Tulsa Time

We left on Wednesday to go to Tulsa to visit my family. On Wednesday we started off going to visit my cousin and her family. She has three adorable kids that I just love seeing. They are growing up so fast!! Then we went to a high school/college friends party – it was a Tacky Christmas Sweater party. It was good to see all my Union friends and OSU buddies!

On Thursday we went to one of my best friends from colleges house to hang out with two of my favorites. Melmann got to come and hang out with her puppies too!

My friends husband really liked Melmann haha (or Melmann really liked Tyler!)

Christmas!

I don’t even know where to start with Christmas.. having a 3 ½ year old opening presents could not be more fun. She LOVED every single item and had about 50 presents to open. I know I’m biased, but my oh my, she is just so cute (my niece that is). My nephew is now old enough to be more active and I just can’t give him enough loving. (Could you when you see him in Santa hat!) I’ll let the pictures tell the story of how wonderful our Christmas was:

Christmas with Meads

On Christmas day we drove back to Missouri to spend time with my in laws. My mother is law is an incredible cook so we enjoyed yummy food and watched a movie. For our Christmas present my father in law made furniture for our living room. It’s beautiful! We love it. I’ll be sure and post pictures of our new living room when it’s completed.

After all the holiday excitement we spent an entire day on the couch catching up on shows/movies/etc. On day #2 we were ready to do something so we went to Nebraska Furntiure Mart (the best place in the world!) We ended up buying our entire bedroom furniture and a new couch for the living room! I swear when we are on vacation and in KC we decide to go shopping – for example:

July vacation – bought our new car

September vacation – adopted Melmann and put fence in

December vacation – bedroom furniture and couch

In our defense, we travel for work and don’t have a ton of time just to hang out. So yeah… I guess that’s why we work to play, right?!!?

So anyway, another HUGE part of my vacation is.. MacBook Air!

I’m completely OBSESSED! I love this thing! I’ve been wanting a personal laptop ( I only have one for work). Plus I do a ton of scrapbooking online and I never have time to spend in our office upstairs on the desktop. This way I can bring my laptop with me and scrapbook whenever I want! Plus, my dad is a computer god and did everything to this laptop. I owe him BIG time. I always said I wouldn’t be like him.. but now I work for a company like his, I’m obsessed with Macs and we take our dog to doggy daycare just for the day to play. Hmmm… guess if I have to be like someone, he’s the best to be like!

We are off to a night of – friends, drinks, cocktail dresses and suits, party bus, and a NYE party in downtown KC. I hope everyone had a wonderful 2010!

Happy New Years!!