And a very merry Christmas to all...

...and to all an incredibly short Christmas summary in the form of very few phone pictures. We're pretty tired around here. But for all of the best reasons. Except for a lingering cough for our poor sick baby; that is not one of the best reasons. Sigh. Almost there. I'm extremely grateful for all of my helpers over the last week and really miss them. Love you, family.

Presents are pretty cool, Dad

We bought chocolate chips with the intent to bake goodies...but so far they've only served as a toy for the baby.

Story time with Auntie Manda!! Please also observe the proximity of the cat to this situation and chalk it up to a Christmas miracle.

Christmas is exhausting, y'all. Also, I'm totally about to outgrow my space egg swing. Yeeps.

Wrap it up

I genuinely LOVE wrapping presents.  Using excessive amounts of tape (although I think I've really toned it down in recent years - people were actually able to open their gifts this year without using pocketknives or excessive amounts of force) and folding corners and making all the shiny things go together just gives me great joy.  Most of this wrapping has been destroyed by now, but fortunately I have just a little more wrapping to do tonight for friend festivities tomorrow night - yay!  Shiny shiny shiny...

Yes, I'm insane and ridiculous and who actually enjoys spending hours wrapping presents?  This girl!!

Jumping the gun

It feels eighteen kinds of wrong to do anything acknowledging Christmas before the sacred day o' turkey passes...but we did it this year.  In the form of going ahead and busting out decorations, addressing a few Christmas cards, and engaging in one of my favorite kinds of shopping along with actual real, in-store shopping for things like extra garland and ornaments.

Pure logistics, people.  Thanksgiving is just late this year, and we'll be out of town, and then next weekend disappears, and then before you know it the tree's not up until December 8 and we only enjoy it for two weeks before it all falls down.  So we went for it.  I think it helped that it was cold and disgusting this weekend and actually felt like we were on the verge of real winter activity - roaring fire (well, as roaring as it gets when the fire starts by flicking a switch on the wall) all weekend long!

Ginormous tree, also an excellent tree fort for Harrison - thank goodness he leaves ornaments alone.  We just have to hang the breakables out of the reach of Zach's tail...

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...oh, wait, do we have a real chimney?  Hmmm...

He of the wonky stocking (it turns!  I think I need to throw a few strategic stitches in there to keep it facing forward) and keeper of the fire

There's also garland and ribbon twirling down the staircase with giant ornaments dangling, a wreath on the front door, and cinnamon pine cones scattered here and there to make the house all Christmasy.  Yay for holiday cheer!  Just not excessive amounts of holiday cheer - please don't ever let me put inflatable things on my lawn.  I just don't think I can go there.

We also gave in to an impulse scentsicles purchase at Home Depot; they were a little overwhelming at first and a touch on the air-freshener-from-a-can scent side, but now they've pleasantly faded into a "oh, is that a real Christmas tree??" kind of scent coming from the corner of the living room.  It's hard to beat the pre-lit tree that's relatively easy to assemble, especially when you can kinda fake it on the real tree scent front.

Happy holidays, y'all!

It's definitely a new year

Oh hi, remember me? Yeah, I barely remember me, too. It's ok, we'll get to know each other again. Maybe. I'll try.

I'm probably not the only one who's happy to have a new year come around.  Fresh-ish start to things.  Not totally fresh, because everything that's ever happened has definitely still happened, but sometimes it's nice to get a new perspective, regain focus...oh, let's not get too philosophical here, New Year's Eve is a great reason to drink champagne!  Pink bubbles AND normal bubbles! Let's party!!

Bubbles in your own home are especially nice, too - no driving, phew. Although Cards Against Humanity - not so nice. At all. But HILARIOUS in a disturbing kind of way. We had a fantastic time with the Vaughns, Keffers, and Nicholseseses* - plenty of food (waaaaay too much food, pretty much the way we always do it), maybe a little too much to drink, excessive gaming, and general merriment all the way around. Bring it, 2013!

Happy new year, ladies!! I wore some sparkles - I just had to. It's also really awesome how the nutcracker appears to be balancing on my head - talented fellow.

New year, new start - I'm not even going to pretend that I'll play catch-up with my life on here - we're just going to move forward with new adventures and maybe throw in some older adventures here and there for fun. For instance...did you know that Craig & I went to Philadelphia for a really awesome wedding? In October? Of 2011? That's right. I might tell you about it sometime.

* Last names that end in "s" really threw me for a loop as a kid. I never knew if it was supposed to be an apostrophe situation for plural or possessive or when to add the -es or if there should maybe just be a way to work around it entirely, which is why I use "s" last names as a descriptor when possible rather than dealing with it (i.e., the Christmas card was totally addressed to "The Nichols Family" rather than "The Nicholses" - help me...). And NOW I am one of those "s" people!! Why do you think I jokingly (but maybe kinda half-seriously...) use Pendarvii instead of Pendarvises? Yup.

Oktoberfesting

In years past at the annual Addison Oktoberfest, members of our merry band of revelers have partaken in events like...a yodeling contest.  AND a beer belly contest.  But this year was a little more subdued, and I'm going to point to the offending heat blasting down on us.  And the fact that small children are also a part of our merry band, and we really shouldn't subject them to things like Mike's yodeling "skills" - pretty frightening.  So this year was pretty much just about FOOD.  And sitting with steins o' beer and catching up on life.  Ahhhh.

Everyone should have awesome suspenders like this guy...AND the hat!  The hat!

We retreated to the beer hall to get out of the broiling sun, and  cold beer is also an excellent way to combat the heat.  Trinity's Shiner shirt is also pretty awesome, and I loved that he had at least one person ask him if he works there.

Gracie also knows how to beat the heat - water time!  Naked baby!

A good mom is always prepared - and I have to say, Gracie is rocking some pretty awesome tan lines for fall.

A box of strudel!  So delicious!

Bier hall time for all, attempting to beat the heat.

Our merry band!  Surviving outside now because the sun is mostly down, letting us enjoy the smells of fried fried and those bright flashing lights from collapsible rides.  Yeeps.

Gracie's first solo ride!  And it's on a sparkly tractor - what could be better?  She totally rocked it.

To get us in the German food frame of mind, I also made some pretzel rolls to fortify our stomachs before filling them with beer - delicious!  Spicy mustard, apples, a little cheddar cheese - a mini German picnic lunch in our kitchen.  We ate three...and then came home to find that the dog ate the other five.  Nothing on the counter is safe.  Including the espresso pumpkin bread I made this weekend and then found partially autopsied in the backyard this morning.  I'm contemplating installing an electric fence around the edge of the counter.

Hi. I'm alive.

It's hard to blog when life is crazy.  And life is crazy.  ALWAYS.  So maybe the blog does need to die, contrary to any prior opinions.  But I don't think I want it to.  So I'll make an effort to make it back here.  But for now, tax deadlines loom where they once didn't, and I now live with this person who actually expects to see my face every once in a while, and there are a million things to do, and life is just generally more bonkers than it has been before.  Dear heavens, and we only have a crazy dog and cat.  What life must be like once you have a real human child.  Eeeka schmeeka!!!

Instead of being all "ohhh, life is so busy!" - how about I also share a little bit about what's going on, like partying with crazy Cajuns at the Boudin Ball last month.  SO. FUN.  Craig and I spent our evening living the life with the Broussards and the Ortuzars, chowing down on some delicious fried turkey and other Cajun delicacies...and drinking an awful lot of Firefly.  Fun night.  Masks, beads, dancing.  YES.

Ponies, ponies everywhere

Amarillo is covered up in horses.  Plenty of real ones, yes, but there's also a herd of fiberglass quarter horses.  Center City of Amarillo and the American Quarter Horse Association (headquartered here in A-town) have teamed up for "Hoof Prints of the American Quarter Horse - America's Horse," a city-wide public art display featuring fiberglass horses outside local businesses that have been painted by local artists.  We are allllll about the horses here, and there are some really cute ones around town!  Also some odd ones here and there, but we'll focus on some cute ones for now.

Last night we had a need to get out of the house after spending the day in a bit of a Thanksgiving coma, so we drove around a bit and laughed at the people standing in lines during sub-freezing temperatures, just waiting to snag their bargains.  We also checked out a couple of ponies I hadn't seen before...it's Amarillo and there's not just a whooooole lot to do.  This one is "Reflections of Love" outside the Amarillo Children's Hospital.  Isn't it sweet with the mommy horse and the baby horse??  Plus they're shiny, which is just awesome.

But I think I was most amused by the sign accompanying the horses...

Outside the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, there's none other than a black horse (looks just like the Masked Rider, except...you know...minus the rider) complete with a Double T:

One of my favorites is the horse outside Hooters - it's sporting the traditional Hooters waitress attire along with a bright red set of lips.  It's delightfully tacky.  And that's how we do it here in Amarillo.

Let's blow up some stuff

Setting:  Our nation's capital.

Date:  July 4, 2010

Objective:  Celebrate America's birthday.  In the coolest (temperature-wise, not in the "oh, you wish you were cool like me!") way possible.  With minimal stress.

Obligation:  Feel compelled to attend celebration on National Mall with free concert, fantastic view of fireworks, sense of awe and national pride swelling in my heart as the patriotic music crescendos and voices young and old ring out.  After all, bajillions of people are in town right now for this very reason.  Am I missing out if I don't go??

Revision to obligation:  Truly feel no compulsion to leave my delightfully air-conditioned apartment ten hours ahead of time to stake out spot on National Mall, surrounded by heat, humidity, and an undetermined amount of small children who may or may not be well-behaved.  Porta-potties.  Lines.  Sweat.  Bugs.  Crowds.  My patriotic enthusiasm fades by the minute.

Best plan ever:  Travel nowhere, except up three flights of stairs fifteen minutes ahead of time to snag a spot on the roof for fireworks viewing with my mostly well-behaved neighbors.  After all, I have this great D.C. apartment with a roof for a reason, right?

Besides, what is this holiday about, really?  In the truest American sense, we just want to blow up some stuff.  And I can see those exploding fireworks from my roof.  Done.

Texas time & New Year's festivities

After Bryan Family Christmas Cruise 2009 (which I promise will get its due recap shortly here on the blog - I'm just a little overwhelmed by the ridiculous number of pictures I took over that week), the family dropped me off in Lewisville so I could take up residence with Diana and Trinity for the better part of a week and use Vaughn Central as a launching place to meet up with my Dallas people.  Nothing like another week of vacation after spending a week sailing the Caribbean!  Thank you, PwC, for the extra couple holiday freebie days - I assure you I put them to good use.  I'm so, so glad I got to spend some quality time with my Vaughns and other dear friends in the greater DFW area.  And some quality time with Mexican food, of course.  I ate Mexican food every day.  My body may not love me for it, but my taste buds were thrilled beyond belief.  Tipico's with Diana and Trinity, Chuy's with Sarah (just look at the joy on that face!  I'm going to say that was half for seeing me and half for going to Chuy's), Jorge's with the Broussards and Petersons, Cyclone Anayas with Carolyn, Kami, & Diana...just delicious.  Good times with good friends and good food - a girl finds herself in heaven. 

Oh, and as if my suitcase wasn't full enough, Diana and I got some good shopping time in with Jen where I stocked up on a few too many shirts, and of course I had to stop by Half-Price Books where I bought...well, ten books.  But they were all clearance!  AND an extra 20% off!!  I HAD to buy them!  I also had to borrow a small suitcase from the Vaughns to then get myself and all my crap home.  Totally worth it.

You know what one of my favorite things to do with old friends is?  Totally play board games.  We love them.  This time around we gave Settlers of Catan a try, and I have to say it was a rousing success.  I'm a little scared of the expansion packs, though...this thing could get out of control.  Enough cannot be said about plenty of chill downtime with good friends.  Love you guys.  I'm getting all mushy, so let's move on to the festivities.

In celebration of Trinity successfully completing an entire year of his crazy experiment known as The Book, the Vaughns threw a New Year's bash at their place to celebrate the coming of 2010.  I think the evening is best told in a small photo series, and if you want even more, you can catch the full photo show here.

We invested in sparkly clothes for the New Year.  Definitely a hit.

Kicking the night off with fancy red bubbles the Vaughns brought back from their trip to California.

My Christmas gift to Trinity from Mexico had to make an appearance.

Our charming hosts for the evening...and wee hours of the morning.

Living room dance par-tay!

More crazy dancing...or at least attempts at it.

Duncan loves parties...he's in full-on begging mode.

Sparklers are fun!  And we only had two burns for the night.

You can catch the full photo show here.  Lots of dancing, lots of bubbles, lots of fun.  Here's to 2010!

O' Christmas tree

I haven't spent a ton of time soaking up the holiday season here in D.C.  It's really pretty remarkable how quickly time starts moving once December hits.  You blink your eyes, and woosh!, the middle of December is here in no time and you start to wonder where the heck all of your weekends went.  Although that's not an entirely bad thing when one of your weekends went to New York.  But it is a little sad when you had plans to meet up with photography buddies (or at least potential photography buddies - haven't actually managed to make it to any events yet!) and Mother Nature foils your plans to capture the holiday wreaths laid out at Arlington National Cemetery.  And your plans to figure out awesome camera things and meet fellow photography nuts.  Next time!

However, Dana and I did resolve that we would at least make our way to the National Christmas Tree in front of the White House, so last Thursday we cut out of work at a decent hour and proceeded to freeze our booties off in search of holiday joy.  There's one giant tree that's rather impressively lit, and it's surrounded by smaller trees, one for every state.  School kiddos or community groups from each state provide the ornaments for the trees, which is very sweet and all...but it's not like each state is really all that distinctive in its ornamentation.  Set high standards, kiddos, and blow us away!  All I really remember are sparkly horses for Nevada.  This may have had something to do with the inability of my frozen fingers to snap any photos of note.

It really is a pretty nice display, though - a little shout-out to every state, the National Menorah standing by, a chorus of little munchkins belting out carols, Santa's workshop, a nativity scene, and one of the most welcome stops...fire pit!!  Trust me, when your fingers and toes feel like they're about to fall off due to the ill effects of the biting wind and bitter cold (ok, so it wasn't THAT cold, but we were pretty frozen), a fire pit is pretty much all you could ever wish for.

After shivering our way through the Ellipse, we headed over to the Willard Hotel, site of many a Washington social scene over the years and always fabulously decked out at the holidays.  We encountered some cheery carolers in the lobby, wondered why the Department of Homeland Security could afford to have a bang-up holiday party at not just any hotel but the Willard, for crying out loud, and enjoyed the general cheery and sparkly nature of the regal old place. 

Yet somehow I still appear to be freezing...

If you want to flip through all the pictures, here's a link to the Picasa album.

After all of the holiday explorations in the chilly night air, there's nothing like a hearty Italian dinner at Potenza to warm you up.  Truly not a bad way to spend a Thursday night during the holiday season here in our nation's capital.

Funny what you remember

These days I'll often open an Internet Explorer window, turn away for two seconds, and not remember what on earth I planned to do with said window.  Was I going to Google...or go somewhere else?  And if I was going to Google something, what the heck was it? 

I emailed myself my parking spot at BWI as soon as I parked my car in 6C-31 around 6:00 AM last Wednesday so I'd have that information easily accessible on the Blackberry and would know where my car was when I made my way back to it around 1:30 AM this morning.  Yeah, those crazy hours may have had something to do with it, but I've definitely spent 20 minutes searching for my car at DFW, so a safety email sure doesn't hurt.  I didn't trust myself to remember.

I can't remember the last time I left my home for any kind of trip without a day-of-leaving checklist.  I don't really think I'd forget to leave out some extra food for my fur child, but I've forgotten my phone charger plenty of times (blerg!), so now that always goes on the list.  This may be because I just like to make lists, but it's also quite possible I could leave the air conditioner on forever.

I forgot to pay my rent once.  ONCE.  Because I was working crazy excessive hours and barely knew how to get myself from point A to point B, I tell myself, but I took that worry and turned it into a monthly calendar reminder.

Yet somehow...I still remember home phone numbers of childhood friends, lyrics to an excessive number of country songs that received any amount of airplay in the 90s, and several 15/16 digit credit card numbers.  I attribute the last one to too much online shopping.  In which case...happy Cyber Monday, everyone!

To decorate!

Worth decorating for a party of one?  Sure, why not!  So last night, that's just what I did.  Ummm...does it take a little bit of the holiday edge off if I decorated to the sounds of Arizona vs. Oregon in double overtime rather than "sounds of the season?"  Whatever the setting, the apartment is now minimally bedecked with some touches of holiday cheer.

You know, they could make those artificial tree needles just a touch softer since they require a certain amount of fluffing and un-smushing every year.  Slightly ouchy.  And while I'm not necessarily a huge fan of artificial snow puffs, they do a bang-up job of concealing power cords and unattractive metal tree bases while also providing a soft landing place for any snowflake ornaments that may decide to take off on an adventure in parachuting.  I love those little snowflakes!  Carrie and Jason gave them to me for Christmas a few years ago, and they're just perfect for my little trees.

When I unearthed the Christmas wreath for the front door, I also found my fall wreath I'd forgotten about, which involved a random burst of creativity, bargain purchases at Garden Ridge, and some hot glue gun adventures with Amy.  Sorry I forgot about you, little fall wreath!  Maybe you can make an appearance next year.

Oh, and I've got more than just the trees and wreath going on - there's the squishy snowman (with berry wreath backup) guarding the living room from his perch on the bookcase:

And if that theory holds, then apparently Kerry and Carrie are also keeping watch over the living room from the picture frame, which is kinda cool.  Although they're wielding bridal/bridesmaid bouquets, which are much less menacing than the squishy snowman's rather sharp and pointy spade/shovel thing.  And yes, I realize inanimate objects are not actually going to come to life and defend my living room in any way.

Ooh, there are also jingle bell snowflakes dangling from cabinet pulls in the kitchen, which I might have to rethink.  Yes, they're festive and shiny and cheerful, but I don't know if I can really handle a jingle of holiday cheer every time I want to grab a spoon or pull out a box of pasta. 

A bit o' holiday cheer to all ya'll out there, and...Bryan Family Christmas Cruise sets sail in almost exactly twenty-eight days!  Yee-haw!