How about a one and done December post?

HELLO busy season, GOODBYE blog.... In the event that there's no way in hell that I'm going to make several different December posts, I'll make one giant December post in an effort to (crossyourfingers) maybe one day get back to current time with this blog. Perhaps I'll do the same for January too since I've currently lost my life, my mind, and just about everything else to work... And, here we go:

Starting the first weekend in December, Justin and I had a busy weekend. We went to my company's holiday party on a Friday night, gift shopped on Saturday, and had tickets to the Nutcracker on Sunday. It was all great fun to get in to the holiday season.

We had GREAT seats at the Nutcracker. I LOVE the Nutcracker and think it screams epitome of the holiday season. HOWEVER. Ahem. What has happened to the ballet? Seriously? There were kids talking and screaming behind us the whole time, people walked in late. Are you kidding? At a major ballet in Seattle? It blew my mind. That coupled with the fact that Justin was on the verge of a massive cold illness and started to feel a full blown sore throat that night was a bit of a downer but nevertheless, we made the most of it and still had a great time.

The second week of December, I was doing my annual flight to Alaska. It was COLD. But completely sunny and absolutely breathtaking. I somehow always seem to forget just how gorgeous that state can be...it's often overlooked by how damn cold it is there.

The last day we drove up to one of my clients' job sites and had just unbelievable views.

And again... a serious winter wonderland.

And a shot of the sunset. At about 3:30pm. But very pretty, regardless.

The weekend after I got back from Alaska, we had the boys and I also volunteered to babysit Bella since Tim was working all weekend. She was such a good girl! (We'll overlook how she decided to bite not just one but BOTH of my neighbor's kids when I let her go play with their dog, her boxer buddy Sadie...ugh). For the most part though, she was very good for me and I was very happy to see her.

Later that same weekend, we made a trip to Costco and found a HUGE (literally bigger than a maxum) bottle of wine by one of our favorite local winemakers- a Kennedy Shah holiday blend. Awesome! It was the perfect bottle to take to Justin's family's Christmas on December 22.

The big bottle made our other bottles look like little splits. I don't have any pictures (Why? I have NO IDEA) but on December 22, we went to Justin's brother's house for the Valente family Christmas. It was SO much fun, but did make the next day at work a little rough. Justin and I had the kids this year from the 18th-23rd so we had planned the Valente Christmas around that. We drank the above bottle of wine, ate, and opened presents. It was such an honor to be able to share that day with all of them.

On Christmas Eve, we flew in to Kansas City for Christmas with my family. Also called: Justin meets the family and sees the midwest for the first time. A big trip. For sure.

A shot of Justin and I on Christmas morning... after eating blueberry coffee cake and eggs, a Christmas tradition. In fact, on Christmas Eve night, I made both of those... and wrapped presents, since we had to wrap the presents we hauled with us on the plane.

Justin surprised me with custom made diamond earrings that he designed. I think here I was looking at him like, "Are you KIDDING ME?" They are absolutely beautiful. Beyond amazed at the thought and effort that went into these, not to mention, um custom diamond earrings? Uh, yeah, that boy got it right.

The day after Christmas, we headed up to Lamoni to spend time with my dad's side of the family. It was Justin's first trip to Iowa as well (oh! Another treat!) We spent the day playing ping pong and cards and I even gave Justin his very own personal tour of Graceland and all of my old haunts. The above is a shot of us waiting to start the games.

Playing around the world ping pong with the family.

The last day in Missouri, we spent more time with my dad's family in another college town- Lawrence, Kansas at my aunt and uncle's house. Again, great fun... eating, drinking, talking.

My brother hanging out... he's wearing a crown giving to him by my cousin's daughter.

Justin, Lilly, and I... all wearing our crowns. That adorable girl (Lilly) was the crown distributor.

And here's a picture with Katie (Lilly's younger sister)! We had so much fun playing with the girls. Other parts of our trip back east included:

Many card games with my parents and brother. Justin learned to play spades and was quite good!

We went to the plaza one night to meet a good girlfriend of mine from grade school and her husband. We wandered around and shopped first and found boxer-opoly. I really despise monopoly but this made me laugh. We then met Jen and Brad at Jack Stack so Justin got a taste of REAL (ahem, Kansas City) BBQ. After the night out with Jen and Brad, we got up early the next day to drive to Nevada, Missouri a TEENY town in southern Missouri where my roommate in college lives. We visited with Wish and her adorable almost 2 year old, Peyton, all morning. It was awesome. Justin was, once again amazed at all of the land in the midwest. Perhaps the cows fascinated him too, who knows. In all seriousness, at the end of the trip, I think the one thing that impressed him most was the people. Their sincerity and just pure genuineness. It's the one thing I miss most about the midwest myself.

We went to the 24 hour fitness close to my parents house to workout on most days. After working out we'd stop at a local grocery store or a natural food store nearby. The local grocery store had apparently the BEST creation in the world (according to Justin... according to me? It made me throw up in my mouth just THINKING about what it was). It was: Rootbeer milk. Eek, even just typing that made me shutter a little bit. But the boy liked it and it was cute to see him so enthralled.

Later in the week we had tickets to the Transsiberian orchestra concert. Another Christmas-y event. It was a little cheesy but looking past that, it was pretty awesome actually. The musicians are talented and I liked hearing a "rock" twist on classical and christmas favorites.

We flew home on New Years Eve and this is what we drove into after getting off the freeway. What a great sight to see on the last day of 2010. Home sweet home.

Justin and I bought a nice bottle of wine on New Years eve and elected to stay home and bring in 2011 quietly. After the craze and go-go-go after the week in the midwest, a quiet, relaxing night sounded perfect. We even managed to stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop and share our first New Year's kiss. 2010 was a craze ride of a year that brought a lot to my life- some sadness, some huge life lessons, some losses, some gains, some perspective... but mostly it was another year of learning and growing and at 11:59pm on December 31, 2010 the emotions I was completely and overwhelmingly feeling was love and happiness. 2011 is going to be a great year.