Friends-Giving

Happy December!  We hope you had a great Thanksgiving.  We were lucky enough to spend our day with both of our families.  Double the turkey double the fun!  

We've had a weekend full of fun with friends and had an absolute blast.  We spend Friday with PT friends at a Pat McCurdy show.  Some friends that have been away from Madison for their clinical placements were there so it was great to catch up with them.  

Yesterday some of our friends came to town for Friends-Giving.  These girls were my roommates in college, some of my bridesmaids, and know WAY too much about me to ever stop being friends!  HA!  We managed to cook one of the most sophisticated meals the four of us have eaten together.  We've come a long way from Topper Sticks and Chips and Salsa!  Though let's be honest, I'd totally eat chips and salsa every day if we had a Chili's in Verona.

We decided to include ugly sweaters in our plans.  Apparently Paul and I took this a little more seriously than everyone else did.  I wish I had taken a picture of the looks on their faces when we walked out wearing our fancy outfits.  Priceless.  It's hard to tell in the picture but even Millie was decked out in her ugly hat!

No ugly sweater party is complete without photo props.  Notice that 2 of 4 of us missed the sweater memo.  Step it next year, ladies!  Cameraman Paul even did some fancy camera work to include the frame prop in our photos!

I got our tree today while Paul was at work and managed to get in in the house and set up ALL BY MYSELF!  I was pretty proud.  I think he was just thankful to avoid the "The tree's about to tip over, turn it around, no turn it back the other way." battle.  As a continuation of the handy camera work in celebration of our first Christmas while married we took some pictures of our rings with our tree.  Can you tell my ring hasn't been cleaned since our wedding?!?!?  Yikes!

Happy December!

Fun In The Sun

Actually, not much sun.  Just fun.  You see, the sun and I don't really agree.  I either end up with some kind of over-heated sick feeling, or a major sunburn.  So instead I layer myself in mega-proof sunscreen and stay in the shade as much as possible.  For short amounts of time.  And sometimes only at night.

Sun or no sun, we have been having fun!  We kicked off our 4th of July celebrations with my Mom's birthday.  Her birthday's the 3rd and every year she is absolutely convinced that the fireworks are for her.  I think it's safe to say I get my "birthday princess syndrome" from her.  My mom and I both have a great amount of love for our birthdays.  So, to celebrate we had dinner at our house then headed to Madison for Rhythm and Booms.  This year we tried a new super secret spot to watch the fireworks.  I won't tell you where it is because it was awesome and we had the place to ourselves.  If you promise to bring your own drinks and bug spray I might invite you along next time.  There was one other family there.  Until we started playing Heads Up.  It's kind of like charades, but the person guessing holds the iPad on their head and then it videotapes everyone giving the clues.  We have a video of the point in the evening when the other family there apparently decided we were too loud and left.  You can see them walking behind all of us in the video.  Whatever people, we were having fun and the fireworks hadn't even started yet!

We spent the 4th at the annual Jones family party - complete with parade.  The first couple of years I went the kids had bikes, scooters, and big wheels.  Now they have 4-wheelers, go karts, dirt bikes, Gator/Rangers, and...well...Paul's poor newly licensed still without a car cousin had her bike.  Luckily we came to her rescue with some pretty sweet signs that I think might have made everyone feel a little bit bad for her.  There are rumors about a Facebook group starting for donations.

 {I fought with the captions for over 30 min on these pictures and have no idea where they went.  So, in a nutshell:  Paul protecting himself from squirt guns and silly string, the start to the parade, grandpa bringing up the rear, the boys and their sweet rides.}

We took a trip to the Farmer's Market last weekend and ate the entire bag of cheese curds that we bought by mid-afternoon.  Oops.  They were SO GOOD!  And squeaky.  We also spent a couple of hours at Lake Wingra on a kayak.  I didn't take the camera with me for obvious reasons.  It's a lake.  Think about it.  I think it's safe to say that I am too nervous of a kayak rider {I didn't paddle much, so yes, rider.} to go kayaking again anytime soon.  The good news is it was only $5 with my college ID.  That I still have and take full advantage of whenever I can.

In our quest to participate in as many fun things Madison has to offer that we possible can we also met up with Paul's Aunt and Uncle for Concerts on the Square last week.  So much fun!  Nothing better than drinks and music.  I think we also picked the best week possible to go.  This week is about 20 degrees warmer and 500 times more humid.

This week is the first time in 14 years that my family is not headed to the Dane County Fair.  It seems a little strange to think that we won't be going, but by looking at the forecast I am ok with staying away.  This is once again going to be the hottest week in July, as it always seems to be.  Instead of standing next to hot furry animals, I am perfectly ok with staying in the comfort of our air conditioned house with a much smaller furry animal who enjoys the heat as much as her momma.

This weekend we get to go to the wedding of 2 of our very good friends.  I feel so honored to be part of their special day and can't wait to celebrate with them!  I just hope there's some shade...