Tag: Holidays

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Happy Hearts Day

As an adult, Valentine’s Day has never been one of my favorites.

To me, it’s much more of a made-up “Hallmark holiday”, created mainly to inflate prices of roses, candy, and paper goods.

Plus I never had a boyfriend over Valentine’s Day until I met R, so I usually didn’t have a reason to make it a big deal.

Sure I enjoy getting a card or an extra “I love you” every February 14, but I don’t really hold it in high regard or eagerly anticipate it each year.

It was great as a kid, though. Who doesn’t love a mug covered in pictures of candy hearts and brimming with said sugary confection waiting for you on the kitchen table first thing in the morning?

But as an adult, I can pretty much take it or leave it. Plus we had to send valentines to daycare for D’s party today.

Dumb.

I mean, it’s cute that they’re having a party, but dumb that parents send a dozen valentines for a group of 18-24 month olds who have zero idea the meaning of the day. Ah well, I guess it’s a small sacrifice for a classroom of cuties.

However, I am quite excited for our heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy’s that R’s mom gets us each Valentine’s Day. It has become our Valentine’s Day dinner tradition, usually paired with our favorite tv show at the time. A few years ago it was Lost. Tonight we might check out the new show The River, since I’ve heard it’s very Lost-esque. Anyone catch its debut last week?

We usually see R’s family each year the weekend before Valentine’s Day for one of our nephew’s birthday party, and that is how we always get the heart-shaped pizzas. Some may laugh, but I love it!

Plus, look at this adorable shot of D playing in a bounce house with her cousins at the party this past weekend. That’s my little valentine!

So Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone, however you like to celebrate (or not)!

 

 

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Memories Captured – January edition

This is one of my favorite pictures ever taken of our little family. Now before you get all ranty on me, let me just say that no, this is not how every day is spent in our house. It was the last full night of our Hawaiian vacation, and we were simply enjoying a cocktail on the lanai.

And D wanted to join in the fun.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hawaii – the rest…

Since the majority of my time on Maui was spent lounging by the pool, reading (Hunger Games trilogy anyone? i loved it!), soaking up sun, and sipping cool drinks, I’ll share the rest of my holiday recap through pictures. It was definitely a week to remember.

 

 

 

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Thar she blows!

Winter in Hawaii is humpback whale season, as these giant mammals migrate from the gulf of Alaska to the warm shallow waters around the islands for breeding and birthing. On the Wednesday of our week in Maui, we all went on a whale watching cruise, which turned out to be incredible.

During the 2 hour cruise we saw no less than I’d say a dozen whales. Some were various groups/pairs we would see repeatedly, but the number of sightings was very impressive. I think I had only seen 1 whale before, on our honeymoon. That trip to Maui occurred during the end of April and beginning of May, which is pretty late to see even 1.

We weren’t sure how D was going to do on the boat, especially for such a long ride. There were some meltdowns, but fortunately they didn’t last the entire trip. I did take her below deck for awhile 1) to get her out of the sun even though she was slathered in sunscreen, 2) to spare the whale watchers’ ears up top, and 3) because I was feeling like crap myself.

I need to stop pretending I don’t get seasick on boats like this, because I obviously do. Put me on something fast and direct, not slow and bobbing. Yuck. Fortunately ginger ale helped.

But the results more than made up for the twinge of nausea and the toddler tantrums. Besides seeing the whales, some of which came up right next to the boat, they put a microphone underwater at one point and we could hear some of them “talking”. It was so cool.

Mother Nature truly is an amazing lady.

 

 

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A very Maui Christmas

I’m probably stating the obvious when I say our Hawaiian vacation was spectacular, but it was. 7 days and 7 nights in paradise? How could that not be magnificent?

Our home for the week - the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua

We flew from Milwaukee to Denver on the night of Dec. 23, then hitched a direct ride from Denver to Maui on Dec. 24, arriving around 3:30 in their afternoon. We were terrified of how D might react to a 7ish hour flight, but amazingly she was a peach. She started throwing up at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Denver that Friday night and proceeded to douse herself and her car seat on the way to the airport Christmas Eve morning, but why wouldn’t she? Just making sure we were paying attention and getting nervous about what was in store.

Really nervous.

Fortunately Karma must have decided to give me a break, because we saw nary a trace of vomit after that. Well, until we got the rental cars in Maui and D decided it was a good time to barf all over her car seat and my step-brother on the way to the hotel, then again shortly after arriving there. At least we made the entire flight puke and crying free, though, right? Right!

So who knows what was going on in that little stomach. A mild bug? A touch of altitude sickness? Much to my surprise that was the last we saw of the cookie tossing for the rest of the vacation, including the tail end we spent in Denver again. Thank GOD!

There is much too much to cram into 1 post to recap this holiday sojourn, so I’ll simply begin with Christmas Day itself. The weather was a little cloudy and rainy, but thankfully that cleared up after the first day or so and left us with blue skies and tanned hides.

We enjoyed a delicious brunch at the Ritz on Christmas afternoon, then watched the Packers beat the Bears in Green Bay. As you will recall, we are a family divided when it comes to NFL football, so R was a solitary happy camper after that game. Ah well. We were in Hawaii!

Ok maybe R wasn’t completely solitary in his happiness at the Packers’ win. At one point that afternoon D came out of Grandma and Grandpa’s room modeling this, an authentic signed Aaron Rodgers jersey. Daddy was elated!

Stay tuned for more of our Pacific adventures…

 

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Resolutions? What resolutions?

So in all the catch-up blog reading I’ve been doing since getting back from Hawaii, I’ve noticed a resounding theme from this past week. What? No, I didn’t read any blogs while I was on vacation. Why would I do that? There were way too many hours to be spent lounging by the pool and sun rays to be caught. Duh.

But as I was saying… It seems the thing to do this time of year is post either a year-in-review recap or a list of resolutions for the year ahead. Or both. For the overachievers out there.

As I read more and more of these posts, I keep thinking maybe I should do the same. But the more I think about it, the more it just doesn’t sound right for me. I mean, I just started this blog last spring, so I don’t have much of anything to recap there. Just a bunch of my random thoughts spilling onto this screen with a few site redesigns thrown in to keep you guessing.

In my non-blogging life nothing too exciting or noteworthy happened either. You’ve heard about most of my days here, and to be perfectly honest, I really can’t thing of anything magnificent that stands out to relive. 2011 was a decent year – some good trips, one of my sisters got married (which was awesome), and we are all healthy, so I’m thankful for that. But other than that – eh, not a whole lot to report. Just another year in the time books.

And as for resolutions, I’ve never been one to make them. I don’t really see the point of resolving to do something for the entire year on the very first day of it, when you really have absolutely no idea what’s going to come your way during said year. I mean maybe it’s kind of nice to have a general guideline in mind for yourself if you have certain areas of your life you really want to work on, but I kind of like myself as I am. I’m happy with most things in my life right now and don’t really feel the need to change much.

So call me a party pooper, but New Year’s resolutions aren’t my bag. And maybe it’s my over-inflated ego talking when I say I don’t have much I want to change, but it’s the truth. Sure some things could be tweaked a little to really make me ecstatically happy, but I’m not crying and whining without them.

I will say, however, that I think 2012 has a much nicer ring to it than 2011, so maybe that’s a sign of good things to come. Either way, a belated Happy New Year to you all!

The last sunset of 2011 that we saw (pardon the iPhone blur)