Merry Christmas HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Morning glories!

Gus and I arrived in VA safe and sound after hours upon hours of driving. It was fun to see the snow get thicker for most of the drive. It truly felt like coming home for the holidays :)

Now we are home and being spoiled rotten traveling and flitting all about to visit with friends and family. But tonight is the night of all nights. Christmas Eve which is I love so much better than actual Christmas day and here is my logic.

Christmas Eve is magical. It is full of possibility and absolutely anything could happen. Christmas Eve mass is gorgeous kids are dressed up and excited, all the fur coats in Richmond come out for one night and there is champagne toasts and bagel noshes. Christmas Eve is my favorite!

Christmas Day is also wonderful because it means tons of incredible family and wonderful food and loads of fun thoughtful presents. Plus having your Grandparents spoil you rotten for a few days is always a blast.

Anyways I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas celebrating all of the special traditions that are important to you :)

I wish you all a very, super Merry Christmas and a beautiful and very happy New Years!

Sooooo close!

Eeeek! I get to go home the day after tomorrow! I am so excited Christmas is going to be so wonderful but most importantly I GET TO GO HOME and be out of here thank God. I get to see the Bogeys and Jonny and the Greene clan and the menage-a and the Burg crew and all of my awesome friends. Eeek! The only fly in the ointment though is that Gus and I could not come to any compromise about dividing our Christmas time so he will be doing his thing and I will be doing mine. Oh well. You can't win them all all the time I suppose. But it tis no matter because I GET TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways in an homage to how awesome being home for Christmas is I am going to post some of my favorite holiday pics for your festive viewing pleasure. Enjoy!


Cutting down our Christmas tree, an annual family tradition where we all get together and play with saws in the forrest... huh.

The notorious penguin hat that when put upon ones head makes everything jolly and fun and wonderful. Seriously you should try it sometime. Its magical.

Who else do you know who would ride a kayak around his family room? No one thats who. Only daddy :)

Since crab legs were added to Christmas Eve dinner and we had no proper crab cracking tools we were forced to imrpovise. With tools from daddys workbench. Hence all the pliers :)

Pretending as if my nose is a succulent piece of crab meat... bahahaha

I want to go home for Christmas. Right Now :(

I am so homesick and ready to go home it is not even funny :(

Christmas Time?

I realize that I have not been placing a whole lot of emphasis on the fact that it is now the holiday season. To be honest I think it is because it does not feel very Christmasish to me here. We put up the cottage tree this weekend and it helps but I don't think it will really feel like Christmas until I am at home. Oh well.

So since I am being such a Grinch I thought that I would link you guys to the funniest Christmas web site that I have found thus far. It is all about sketchy Santa's and the pictures are hilarious.

Enjoy ....

SKETCHY SANTAS

Happy Birthday Bogey! Take Two :)

Happy birthday mommy! Today we are celebrating my super amazing mothers birthday which yes happens to fall within the same week as my fathers which was always fun growing up. Mommy is quite the jet setting rockstar and got to travel last night in high style all around Richmond in the Shaggin Waggin checking out all the fun lights and hanging out with her cool kid crew. I am sure you had so much fun Mom and I wish that I could be there with you to play but I shall be home very soon and there will be many toasts and adventures. I love you very much and hope that you have a fabulous birthday and are celebrating the fact that you don't look a day over 37 :)

Baby Tiny Bogey Baby. So freaking cute!

Mom and Uncle Hugh in what I am sure was quite the fun portrait session :)

Beautiful MEG.

Mirror mirror on the wall I have the most beautiful mommy of them all!

Mommy taking me out on the town to celebrate my 21st birthday. She has always understood my need to dress up and get all fancy :)

Bogey looking picturesque on our vacay to Prince Edward Island. She looks like something out of a postcard.

Kisses on the deck of Legends Brewing Company as the sun sets on Downtown Richmond. A perfect pair, delicious cupcakes and yummy microbrews. Life can't get much better than that.

WICKED! Our trip to NYC will long be remembered as the weekend the redheads took Manhattan and had way too much fun. Thank you again mommy for such an incredible trip!

Jonny giving mommy her dirty old woman painting :) Just kidding this is one of Jonny first nudes and mom fell in love so he gave it to her as a mothers day gift. I completely forget this boys name right now....

Happy graduation day! Mommy and grandpa after graduating from Ursuline.

Happy Birthday Bogey! Two years ago today mommy and her crew celebrating the big 50 in style. This was a great surprise and tons of fun!

Jonny loves mommy oh so very much. He smooches to prove it :)

Very bestest friends forever. Well in three day spaces at least :)

Cassada cake! My mother had introduced my to yet another delicious confection that you can only get made correctly in Cleveland. Wench :)

The tale of Anna

Alright so here is the puppy update. We found her owners and now I am crushed :(
Turns our her name is Anna and she is a repeat runaway offender according to her family.
The problem lies in the fact that I had fallen completely and totally in love with her.

I don't even like dogs, dogs don't really like me but this dog did. I refuse to call her Anna because that name just does not seem to fit her. I was going to call her Ginger. Sigh. It was not the fliers or the online ads but rather the call to the local SPCA that gave us the number of the puppies real true owners and my heart sank. I did not want to give her back. Which puts you in quite a moral pickle because even if the owners are negligent and let her run away all the time she still belongs to them. So I could not make the call I made Gus do it because I did not want to be the one responsible for sending her away and he is still technically the man of the house and has to do the hard stuff. I told him to add though that we wanted her if they didn't.

We can't have a dog. Gus wants a dog desperately but we are just getting our acts together and it would probably be irresponsible to get one at this stage in our lives. They require alot of work and love and money and are a big commitment. I know all this but I think destiny had other plans. I mean the puppy literally showed up on our front porch. She is cuddly and lovable and sweet and perfect.

So Gus called me back and said that the owner had literally called the universes bluff and that we could have the dog if we want her. Apparently this woman has lots of kids and 'Anna' is constantly running away and causing her headaches and she has been thinking of giving her up for awhile. Despite all of my reservations I was almost psuedo begging her to leave the puppy with us. It was like something out of an orphan adoption movie. She was admiring what a nice house we had and what a lovely couple we were (according to our digital picture frame) and it seemed like the deal was sealed. She was all set to give Anna a better life, but then at literally the last moment reconsidered and decided she wanted to give her another shot.

Now I am sad. A puppy is impractical and exactly what I don't need right now but so was Gus Diggs in the beginning and that turned out for the best. Maybe we had to move to Murphysboro to find our perfect puppy. Oh and for those wondering the puppy and Henry got along splendidly. They weren't exactly the fox and the hound but not for the reasons you would think. The puppy was terrified of Henry, as most dogs are. Henry can hold his own and won't take any crap from any animal. Small dogs included.

So the lady took my information and said she would talk to her husband and they would think it over. It would be easy to get wrapped up in thinking about vet bills and buying food and how we would take care of her when we traveled but for now all I can think about is her curled up in a ball in our front window waiting for me to come home :(