Surprisingly, December felt NOTHING like December in DC. We had weather in the 60s most days and the son was nice and shiny. One of the things I was looking forward to when we moved up north was the white Christmas I've been dreaming about my entire life. 2010 and 2011 did not fulfill that dream, so here's hoping for 2012!!!
With the less than wintery weather and how tired I was after losing my appendix, I did not end up putting out our Christmas tree this year. In fact, I didn't put up a single Christmas at all. Not one. That's sad... I know. Probably not as sad as the fact that I still had a pumpkin out on my porch as a decoration until December 17th. Oh well. We were pretty focused on our finals and then left town, so it wasn't really worth putting them out for only 2 weeks.
I DID however, do lots of Christmas baking! From salted caramel candies to divinity to truffles to cookies, I made all sorts of good stuff.
I sent in a tray of assorted goodies to both Caleb and my offices that became known as the Osborne Sampler (which I think is hilarious!).
I also made everyone in both of our offices Christmas goodies in small mason jars as their Christmas presents. There were individual apple pies and chocolate peppermint fudge cupcakes. How cute are these? They took me longer than I wanted so I didn't get to make cute tags to go on the top.... but there's always next year!
I also discovered, sadly, that Caleb and I only took 4 pictures together in the entire year of 2011. I decided to send out a Christmas card for the first time and thought it would be a fabulous idea until I discovered our lack of pictures. Here were my choices:
So, as you can imagine, I chose this one. I believe one of my New Years Resolutions will be for us to take more pictures together.
I also had a garden miracle! I posted a few months ago about planting a garden on my patio. My herbs and flowers generally did fantastic in the early fall. While my veggie plants shot up really quickly, they never actually produced vegetables. I grew lettuce, cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli. I was so mad at them that about November 1st I gave up and refused to water them anymore. If they weren't going to make me vegetables than they could just die. However, my plants are more hard-headed than me and refused to die! I went out on the balcony the day before we were going to head home for the holidays to yank them up and kill them myself once and for all and what did I find.....
I was so mad! Here I am leaving town for 3 weeks and I now have vegetables. Probably because December decided to have October-like weather. Hopefully they survived while I've been gone. We'll see here in a few days...
Caleb and I both successfully completed our final exams. I am now 3/4 of the way to my Masters and Caleb is 1/2 of a lawyer. So far I found out that I made all A's (yay!) and we are still waiting to hear back on Caleb's grades. Apparently it takes FOREVER for law school teachers to grade exams. Oh well. We are not worrying about those for now.
We celebrated Caleb's 27th birthday before we left DC! And he has officially gone Apple. I got him an Iphone for his birthday present and he is fully enjoying Siri and the ability to check your facebook no matter where you are. We went to a nice dinner on his birthday and then headed home early to pack our bags for home! When we packed up that morning, Scarlett was so afraid that we were going to leave her that she snuck in the garage, jumped in the car and burrowed between the bags. Essentially, she tried to stow herself away. It was hilarious. Too bad she didn't blend in as well as she thought....
We left DC at 5am and made it to Little Rock by 930 that night, including many stops for gas/food and an extended stop in Memphis to visit with our friends the Thompsons and their BEAUTIFUL baby girl. I can't believe how much kids grow while we are away. This was Rhett Butler's first long road trip home and she did okay... for the most part. She really hates the car and has been especially grumpy the last two weeks before we came home because she got spayed. I thought I was smart and gave her a dose (perhaps a double dose) of benadryl. It worked on Scarlett- she was out like a light. Rhett, however, felt like screaming in the back of the car for the first hour that we drove, which was awesome. She settled down eventually and only threw a few small tantrums.
We spent the night in Little Rock and then surprised our niece Ellie with donuts on her birthday the next morning. Then we loaded up and headed on to Dallas where we spent a week baking, shopping, going to stars games and eating meal after meal of Mexican food. I think my family was glad when our week there was up so they could eat something other than Mexican food.
This was our year to spend Christmas with my family, so we did our traditional Christmas Eve with my grandparents and aunt, Christmas morning with just my family, and then extended family lunch. It was so nice to be home. We got some really amazing presents this year: Caleb furthered his Apple collection and got an ipad, I got a bluray player and a new phone, and the dogs got lots of treats and bones.
After a week in Dallas, we headed up to Little Rock to spend a week with Caleb's family. We have played and played and played with the kids (my poor dogs are going to sleep for a month when they get home), we baked some more, celebrated a few birthdays and spent a lot of time laughing. Caleb and I joke that when we are in Dallas, I visit and he relaxes and when we are in Little Rock he visits and I relax. This year has been different for some reason. We have been going NON-STOP at both of our homes to see and do as much as we can do. We realize that we don't get to come home very much and once we are out of school we won't get to spend entire weeks at home, so we want to enjoy every moment that we can! Sorry for the lack of Little Rock pics... I lost my camera in one of our bags for a few days....
For New Years Eve we spent time with our friends the Harris' and FINALLY got to meet their first little boy AND their precious newborn baby boy. We have really missed them and loved getting to spend New Years Eve laughing with friends.
Now we only have 1 more day in the true South before we head north to the land of no mexican food, really cold and dark winters, and more school..... Oh well. We have really enjoyed being home. OH! I almost forgot. Caleb got me an AMAZING new camera for Christmas, so hopefully I will be able to post blogs with more/better pictures. Or... I will as soon as I figure out how to use it. It's so nice! And confusing!!!
Check back soon for my reflections on 2011 and new years resolutions!
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