Do you celebrate St. Nicks?

Matt and I love St. Nick's Day. Growing up we used to put our shoes outside our rooms and St. Nick would fill them with candy. Matt used to always get ornaments growing up. We tried to start the ornament tradition for us as a couple...but we buy so many ornaments during the year it was just over the top! So every year we pick a few people to share the awesomeness of St. Nicks! This year we tried to make Joe, Kelly and Carissa feel at home with...........snow in a can!

Lucky's Great Escape

We have determined Lucky has some SERIOUS separation anxiety. Poor thing. We had noticed that she was trying to get out of her crate (the metal wire kind) but figured we were okay. Then we took her to stay with Aunt Jamie while we went to Vegas and she was freaked out. If Jamie left she went nuts, as she does with us, and on Monday she escaped from her crate through the side of the door. She destroyed Jamie's blinds as she must have paw'd at the window trying to get out and find Jamie. We got back on Tuesday and for the rest of the week Matt used a couple of carabiners to keep it shut. Sunday we went to Petsmart to buy her a new crate and we came back to the following...

Notice the blinds - destroyed! Luckily they were the only blinds in the house that weren't the faux-wood so we just went to Home Depot with our Christmas gift card from Brian and have all the same blinds now! Also, there was poop in two corners of the room. Ugh! 

Can you tell the hole she "levetated" out of!??!? I have no idea how she got out. Top right  to the side of the front. How did she get out from up at the top of the side!

So we made an appointment with our with our trainer to figure out how help her deal with this! 

Introducing Lucky

It is bittersweet that I write this post. In May we had to put sweet little Lemmon down. It was too devastating to post so I kept it to myself. You might remember all of the trouble we had with her this past year - turns out she had distemper, a neurological disease that cannot be cured. Symptoms include "aggressive seizures" which explains the times she snapped and bit at people. She couldn't control herself and the vet said it was the most humane thing to do. She will always be a special part of our lives! 

We have a new addition to our family unit...little miss Lucky! She comes from the Rockwall animal shelter. After Lemmon I wasn't sure I would ever want a dog again, but after a few months Matt and I both started considering the idea. We picked up Lucky at the Petco in Rockwall through the Rockwall Animal Shelter. She is two years old, potty trained, calm and good with kids. I think she was raised with cats bc she sleeps all day and sometimes I catch her "grooming" herself like a cat. From her records it looks like she was turned into the shelter, adopted and returned. At first Matt and I had no idea who would ever return her because she is amazing. Unbelievably sweet and calm. Well after the past week we have discovered what might have brought her in. She has EXTREME separation anxiety. That will have its own post - but I can tell you that after everything we went through with Lemmon, we can handle a little separation anxiety. We just love her and can't wait to share more posts with you guys! Hope you think she is as cute as we do!!!

At her first vet appointment. She was terrified. Poor thing!

Kisses!!!!!!

Don't you just love that little jacket!

It is hard to tell, but look at her head - I was holding her up and she just nestled her little head on my chest. A-dorable!

 Stay tuned for the next post to come..."Lucky's escape"

Family in town

Well Michael and Sanja have officially made it to Texas!!!! Sanja's brother moved her a few years ago and they just had their first baby girl! Bonus for us is we got to spend some time with them too! It was Matt's first time to meet Alexander.

Holding sweet Alexander, Gabriel, Michael and Sanja

 We did breakfast at the house, followed by the Highland Park amazing park, In 'n Out burger, and the ducks at Northpark Mall.

This little guy was Matt's biggest fan. So sweet!

Holiday Tea & Gingerbread Houses

This past weekend kicked off Christmas holiday parties and I loved it! Saturday Steph hosted a holiday tea and gingerbread house making party. She, of course, went all out and it was perfect! I loved seeing all of the special touches! Thanks for the amazing party Steph!!!

Saturday evening Matt and I went to a work holiday party. It was catered by two-sisters and so fun! No pictures to share unfortunately. The dress code was "Christmas casual" - Matt wore his bowtie!

A Very Christmas Thanksgiving

This year was the first year of our marriage that we spent Thanksgiving with Matt's side of the family in Wisconsin. Granted it IS only our 3rd Thanksgiving as a married couple! The first two years we spent Thanksgiving in Jackson and Christmas in Wisconsin. It was really fun for Matt because it has been several years since he was home for the Thanksgiving holiday. We got SUPER lucky with our flights in the fact that: they. were. free! Yes, free! I won a "grand prize" at a charity fundraiser and received two free tickets on Southwest. Talk about "winning!" We made the flight arrangements in the summer and the total we "saved" was $904! Yikes Thanksgiving flights are expensive!

We arrived Wednesday around dinner time and went with Fred and Karen to our favorite Italian place! Thanksgiving day was very traditional...football, food and family. Karen had an amazing brunch spread with the cutest spinach-artichoke dip in a real pumpkin with Packer-colored chips!

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Inbetween the Packer game and dinner the boys played a bit of football. I did not participate this year as it was football last Thanksgiving where I broke my finger. I am not ready to get back on the horse yet!

Love this picture

Wonderful family meal!

When we were in Napa we tasted this wine and it was amazing. We all agreed it would make a perfect holiday meal wine! Fred and Karen bought a few bottles as did we (well just one bottle for us!). It was fun to enjoy such a good wine!

The rest of the evening we sat in our food comos and watched movies!

Loungin' around

 Since we were not coming back for Christmas we did some joint-holiday celebrating...including a trip to the spa Friday morning.

Karen's annual St. Nick gifts to the girls...pedicures at THE MOST amazing pedicure place ever!

Friday afternoon we headed to Waukasha to celebrate with Dan and Denise. Aunt Anna and her kids drove all the way up from Chicago to surprise us. It was really nice to see them...as well as Matt's grandma!

While Denise was making magic in the kitchen we put up ornaments on the Christmas tree. Now, you might recall a few posts ago I "gasped" when Matt suggested a fake tree...but I will admit, Denise's fake tree is pretty awesome. 

Continuing Christmas we did our secret santa exchange with the siblings and their significant others. 

As well as got our St. Nick ornaments. I got a cute Santa face and Matt got a Packers helmet! I think "Norman's" campfire was my favorite though. 

Sunday we had a really cool experience - getting to go with Laura and Chris to look at a wedding venue...the same venue where Jared's sister got married = where we met!

One of the best parts of the trip was the fact that all of our flights were on time! Unbelievable!

Happy Birthday Papa Bear

We got to celebrate Papa Bear's birthday in person a few days early when we were in WI for Thanksgiving! I am a bit late on my post but happy official online birthday!

We made him a shutterfly book of our San Francisco trip...it was a hit!

Vegas Baby!

Last weekend we packed up and headed to Vegas for a long weekend. We started talking about this trip at the beginning of the summer when Matt and his buddy Nick heard about the Rock 'n Roll marathon / half marathon and thought it would be cool to run (the half that is). Matt mentioned it to Brian who said he had never been and wanted to go - and Brian mentioned it to Ethan who loves Vegas. Next thing I know we are having a Vegas planning party/spaghetti dinner at the house buying plane tickets and booking a hotel. Several months went by after the dinner and while at the time December seemed so far away, it snuck right up on us. I will admit it was not the easiest to fit in Vegas right after traveling for Thanksgiving - but the trip turned out to be perfect!!!! Something I think the 5 of us would consider doing again next year. 

Our hotel room was unbelievable. We fit the 5 of us in a 3 room suite! The common area had an 8 foot projector screen that came down. It was hard for the boys to leave the Packer game and get ready for their run. 

The common room. There were flat screen TVs in the bathrooms - my getting ready process seemed to take much longer with the distraction of a TV from the shower!

 We arrived about 9:30pm Friday night and immediately got food. By the time we finished eating it was already almost midnight. Brian, Ethan and I being the old folks that we are went to bed. Matt and Nick went out on the strip. It was Matt's first time in Vegas as well and he loved it! I don't think they came home until 5:30am!

Realizing that none of us packed appropriately. It. was. freezing.

Paris

 The next morning - well not really morning - day, when everyone was finally up we walked up and down the strip looking for someplace that was still serving breakfast. No luck. We settled on a french restaurant outside of the Paris casino. They had a make your own bloody mary bar which I think sold half the group. That and there was no wait!

Matt's bloody mary - the olives were for me!

 After fueling up we went towards the end of the strip to the Venetian convention center to pick up Matt and Nick's packets. They had tons of vendors so we spent about 2 hours walking around looking at running/health stuff. 

Re-filling out his form!

Goofing off at the convention center. 

Dinner was at the new casino, the cosmopolitan. We were told they had the best buffet - it was pretty tasty. Brian and I were super excited about the crab leg station. Not as good as peg legs though!

Round 1

Round 2 - yes I probably did gain 5 pounds at the buffets...lol!

Ethan's dessert plate

 After dinner we went to the 10:30pm showing of the Blue Man Group. Matt had seen them once before in Chicago and loved it. It was a fun show. My first time in Vegas I went to the Celine Dion concert and LOVED IT...not surprisingly, none of the guys wanted to see her concert! I guess Blue Man Group was a happy medium.

Matt got us tickets in the splash zone - we were in row 6. No one got splashed though!

 Sunday was the day of the race. The Vegas Rock 'n Roll is a night-time marathon and apparently the largest nighttime run in the world. Between the half and full they had 44,000 people running. It was incredible. 

Matt went all out shaving his beard into a fu-man-chu (spelling?!?)

So proud of him!!!

 After two nights of living it up in Vegas they both completed the 12.6 miles. Matt said it was his favorite run. It almost made me want to get into running. The strip at night just has so much energy and is so lit up. They had bands about every 3 blocks, and the bellagio fountains were going off almost the entire time!

Monday we slept in, gambled a bit more, and ate at two more buffets before heading back to the airport. We even got an upclose showing of the water show. There was no way I was missing the fountain experience. I think the Bellagio fountains might be my favorite thing to see in Vegas. Sad? Maybe!

At the airport headed home. Tired and happy!

All in all it was a great trip. It is so fun to travel with friends - especially when everyone is so easy going! Here's to hoping for a second annual trip next year!!!!