Christmas 2015 and Charlottesville

I'm so far behind in posting and I don't even care anymore. I'm working full time and essentially going to school full time, so if I get a chance to post, it's a lucky day.

We had such an amazing Christmas. After our trip to Cambodia fell through we decided to stay in the DC area instead of spending a million dollars to go home for the holidays. And honestly, it was such a great decision.

On Christmas Eve we had dinner and a little program with 3 other couples who also stayed home. Everyone brought traditions from their families and we played games and laughed and ate so much food. It was such a great night.

On Christmas we relaxed at home and opened presents. We were so lucky that we had such kind family who shipped us presents so we could still share the day with them. After sitting on our butts all morning we headed out to my family's tradition of seeing a movie on Christmas. I've done this my whole life and it's surprising how many people have joined in in the last few years.

Hal's work gave him a last minute gift and we decided to use it and go somewhere fun for a few days. We left Christmas afternoon and headed down to Charlottesville, VA. We took a little inspiration from A Christmas Story and tried to find a Chinese restaurant open for dinner. It took a lot of calling, but we finally found one open and had a delicious Christmas Chinese feast in our hotel room.

We started out our trip by heading up to Monticello. Unfortunately it was raining and super foggy the entire time we were there, but luckily it made for really cool photos. We both thoroughly enjoyed Monticello. It was really cool to see how Jefferson was impacted by his time in Europe and how he drastically altered his designs based on the inspiration he saw all over Europe. My favorite parts were the really cool clock in the first room of the tour, seeing his actual boots in his bedroom, and seeing his pulley door in the main sitting room.

That same day we headed down to see the Great Caverns. I realized I had never been in a cavern before, so I was pretty darn impressed. This is the longest continually operated show cave in America. On the same day Union troops and Confederate troops were given tours of the cave, within hours of each other. You can even see their signatures from their tours still intact. The other really cool thing about this cave is that instead of things growing horizontally they grow vertically, so the have some shapes that are rather unique to this particular cave. They also have a lot of shield shapes which apparently are very uncommon.

Our last day we decided to partake of the famous food in Charlottesville we've heard so much about. Duck Donuts, which we've had before surely did not disappoint again. We did finally get to try the famous Bodo Bagel and man oh man, we're both still dreaming of how delicious those bagels were. Plus it was an amazing 65 degrees that day, so we drove to a park and enjoyed our meal outside while being baffled by the December weather.

I'd highly recommend Charlottesville for a perfect little getaway. Just 2 hours from DC, it's very close to Shenandoah, and has delicious food; which is always the real motivator for us. 

Halloweentown

Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. What's not to love about getting to dress up in whatever you want, hang out with friends, and eat delicious candy? It's a holiday centered around being silly, how could you not love that?

Hal and I went all out this Halloween.  We had a wedding on Halloween so we decided to make the most of my church's trunk or treat.

Double cookie monsters. What's better than that? Hal was working in Seattle all week and flew home on a red eye Thursday night.  When I got home from work on Friday I set him to work on the car's cookie monster costume. We dumpster dived at our apartment's recycling dumpster for cardboard boxes. Hal free handed the designs while I cut the shapes out and we painted the night away while watching Hocus Pocus.

I hadn't ever decorated the car before for the trunk or treat, but I'm so glad we did. All of the kids loved it. Now we'll have to think of something amazing next year to top this.

We also decided to try out cat costumes because we're evil cat owners. Tuk Tuk tolerated her costume while Pepe did not. The first dragon costume didn't quite fit him since he's so long and he kept walking backwards to try to get it off.  The second costume was more successful, but equally hated.

And lastly, on actual Halloween we went to Hal's co-worker's wedding. I think Halloween is such a fun wedding day. They had the cutest touches of Halloween all over the reception hall. I think my favorite part was his shoes. They were normal dress shoes with a skeleton feet outline. 

We had a blast with all of their fun Halloween decorations and felt so lucky that they invited us to be a part of their special day. 

A Christmas Visit Home

This may be a bit late, but better late than never, eh?

Hal and I are so tricky. In his new hire paperwork for his new job, it said new hires aren't allowed to take time off for Christmas their first year, so we told everyone we wouldn't be coming home for the holidays. Only to find out after he started hi job, that his specific office would be closed from Christmas to New Years and we was welcome to take additional time off.

Hollah.

Oh, except he kept telling out families we weren't coming when they kept forgetting, and we bought our tickets in secret.

Cause we're awesome like that.

I wish I had recorded some of the reactions from my family. Hal's family knew we were coming by the time we made it there, but we were able to keep up the surprise with my family, and it was awesome. I highly recommend it, if you ever get the chance.

We had such a blast at home. It literally flew by. It's hard to live away and only come home once or twice a year because then you have to split up your time and try to see everyone, and give everyone equal amounts of time. That was not favorite. But it was still worth it.

It snowed overnight on Christmas Eve. Perfect to wake up to a white Christmas. It was the perfect gift. Well, except for Christ being born. That's the real perfect gift. This was second perfect.

 We got to spend so much time with family and nieces and nephews which is always a favorite. Taking selfies with kids is the best.

 My sister brought wee babe Lillian home with her and my dad gave her a baby blessing while we were there. We were so lucky that the baby blessing overlapped with our time there. The one downfall to surprising your family, no one thinks to tell you about events like that.

We were so lucky that our friends Meagan and Charles actually wanted to pick us up and take us to the airport. Especially because both flights were late at night. It snowed all day the day we left, and we kept hoping our flight would get canceled. Then we remembered Salt Lake actually knows how to live with snow, so our flight wasn't canceled. I forgot to take a single picture in the snow, so we attempted one at the airport as it was still snowing. You might not be able to see the snow, but the picture turned out pretty good anyway.

 It was so good to go home for a visit and see as many people as we could while we were there, and to bask in the snow and the beauty that is the Salt Lake area, and the wonderful mountains that we really miss; but it was so good to go home; and to realize we really have finally established our lives out here. I think our kitties were happy to see us too.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas From Sam & Hal

Tuk Tuk and Pepe also want to wish you a merry whatever you're celebrating at this time of the year, and hope that you get to spend time with your loved ones appreciating the spirit of this season.

Christmas Gift Ideas For Him

Buying presents for boys can be hard. They like practical/useful gifts. Like makeup and pretty things are useful? When we first got married I gave Hal lots of sentimental gifts that I spent so much time making. He always put on a nice face, but seeing his reaction when I made him an emergency car kit for Valentines last year, I knew he liked it so much more than a picture book of our first year of marriage. Whatever.

So here's my little hipster guide for Christmas Gifts for the man in your life.

1. Charles Tyrwhitt Dress Shirt

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Randomly one day we received a catalog with a great coupon for a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt. We had never heard of them before, but we checked out their store in DC. Hal is kind of obsessed with his dress shirt from there. His has a herringbone pattern on it, and he just loves the quality of it. Can't go wrong with a really high quality dress shirt. Plus they often have their shirts on sale for $39.

2. Personalized Tie Bar and Cuff links

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There are a ton of cuff link and tie bar sets on Etsy. You can get ones handstamped with your initials, and even include a little cute secret message on the inside of the tie bar.

3. Multi tools

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There are so many cool multi tools these days, and seriously, what guy doesn't love one of these credit card sized multi tools? These just scream manly. 

4. Birchbox for Men

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Hal loves his birchbox. He's had it for two years now and has lots of products he loves, from this face lotion, this shaving cream, to anything by Billy Jealousy. Let's be honest ladies, we want a well groomed man, and birchbox for men leads to that. He always gets a full sized product in his. He's gotten ties, socks, bottle openers and all sorts of cool stuff I wish I got in mine. 

5. Beard Stuff

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What is up with the beard trend lately? I'm pretty sure Hal thinks having a beard is the manliest thing in the world. But when your man works in an office, he needs a well groomed beard, so get your man some soap just for his beard. I also happen to know this shop has a beard balm coming soon.              

                               
6. Horn Comb

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Hal was given this comb as a gift, and he has been kind of obsessed with it. It's manly, but pretty, and as an added plus, he will finally stop stealing your brush.                                                                      

Thanksgiving Festivities

Do you know what's a sign of a good weekend? No pictures.

I used to try and take pictures of every event to mark the moment and to be able to post about it on our blog, but I guess I've stopped caring about stopping to take a picture, and started caring more about enjoying the moment.

We had a wonderful holiday. It was our first Thanksgiving staying in DC, so we combined Thanksgiving with 3 other couples from church who don't have any family out here either. It was so great. We all split up the responsibilities and stuffed ourselves silly and then lounged around just talking and playing games the rest of the evening. And even though I didn't take a single picture, it was really fun. We made pumpkin and pecan pie both from scratch, and they both turned out amazing. It was probably the influence of watching the Walking Dead while baking, that made them turn out.

Friday Hal and I went Black Friday shopping. We spent longer in line at Old Navy than we did total time at H&M.

We had some friends over for game night later that evening, it was our first get together at our place and it was so much fun. Pepe is always the life of the party.

Saturday we went to see Dumb and Dumber To with some friends at a fancy theater here in town. While the movie was disappointing, taking some new friends to our favorite/only good Mexican restaurant in the DC area was worth it.

Sunday our friends threw the biggest holiday party. I'm not sure any more people could have fit into their apartment. Everyone brought something to contribute to dinner and we all were well fed. We then had a very rousing white elephant game. Why don't we play more of those throughout the year? I think they're the best. Batman underwear with a cape? I'm in.

Having almost 4 days together was absolutely amazing. With Hal's new job, him studying for the CPA, and me finishing my last classes for doula certification we haven't had much time together.

Even though it was really hard going to back to work after such a fun weekend, it was good to know that we filled our weekend with so much goodness. It's finally feeling like we're settling down out here, and that's a really good feeling.  

Halloween 2014

I'm thinking I need a happy post to lighten the mood around here after my last post about Lyme Disease.

And what's more happy than Halloween, my favorite holiday?

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty stoked about my costume, even though it was totally last minute and totally janky, it was awesome blossom in my book. What's better than a Hamburgler costume?

The evening before our church's trunk or treat, I spent about an hour perfectly placing the white duck tape to mimic the stripes since I didn't have any black and white striped clothes; only to put the dress on and not be able to move. So 20 minutes later all the strips of tape were added to a new dress and the show was on the road.

I took off my cape to make for a scary trunk for the kids to come truck or treating at (trunk or treat is a tradition in my church, where people decorate their trunks, and the kids come trick or treating to the trunks of everyone's cars.) Some of them were a little weary of my head poking out of a hole, but once they saw the candy they lost all fear of me. I'm thinking I'm going to have to make this a trunk or treat tradition.

Pumpkin Carving

Hal and I have already gotten as much Halloweening in as we're probably going to get this year, so I figured why not post about it early and get some Halloween spirit going on around here. Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I'm feeling like spreading the spirit.

Last weekend Hal and I decorated sugar cookies and carved pumpkins. Now looking back at these pictures all I want is some more of Jessica's sugar cookies.

Above are some of the cookies that I decorated, and below you'll see the evolution of the mega cookie that Hal decorated, and how funny he is when it comes to this stuff. You might see a trend happening with his pumpkin below. It was one mega cookie, and I'm not gonna lie, it looks delicious right now.

See that trend on Hal's crafts? I don't even know how to describe his pumpkin...a totum looking gorilla thingy?

Also, if you don't have a porch to put your pumpkins on, don't carve them two weeks before Halloween. Carved pumpkins mold so fast when they're inside all the time. We already had to throw both of them away. Also, getting a $1 table cloth and putting it on the ground is the best way to carve. Then you can just wrap up the table cloth and throw it all away.