MAJOR recap

I've missed my blogging! Since I'm not quite ready to give up my Chicago blog, I'll keep going on here for now. We've been quite busy the last week or so, so I'll post some pictures to recap all our fun.

Since my last post, we've had a tacky Christmas sweater party at one of Landon's co-workers house.... (we discovered a new favorite drink here, keep reading to hear about it!)

I did some substitute teaching and received these little gems....

We received an early Christmas gift from Landon's parents.... We had the left half already, but the right half is new and we love it!

Then, we were off to Florida with my parents for another early Christmas gift! We stayed at the same resort we've stayed at quite a few times and we always have such a wonderful time there. It was such a relaxing trip and the weather was wonderful, despite some high winds. The low was 70 degrees and high was right around 80! This trip really confirmed that I'm truly meant to live in a warmer climate :)

We did lots of lounging and relaxing, but we had lots of fun too. We played some shuffleboard, played a round of mini golf, and did lots of walking and lounging on the beach.

Landon even rented a boogie board and rode the (rough) waves for a while.

As I mentioned earlier, we discovered a new favorite drink. It's Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka mixed with orange juice and it tastes just like a creamsicle, it is double delish! You most definitely should try it!

After several wonderful days at the beach (and lots of "creamsicles") we topped off our vacation with a wonderful seafood dinner....

.... and one last glimpse of the beach from our balcony.... it sure was hard to leave!

It was a wonderful vacation and the only thing that did make it bearable to leave was knowing we would be home in Texas just a few short days later! Thank you Mom, Dad, Denise & Delbert for our early Christmas gifts - it's been a great December so far!

Can't stop, won't stop

Blogging, that is! I know this was my "Chicago blog" but I enjoyed it so much so I'm just going to keep going for now.

Since returning to Greenfield, I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen that I missed so much. The only meal I actually cooked in Chicago was Thanksgiving dinner, so I've really had the cooking/baking itch lately. I of course had to make chicken piccata (which is usually a weekly thing), butternut squash soup, and cookies & cream cookies.

It was my first time to make these cookies, and they were quite delicious. They have broken oreo pieces in them, how could they not be?! They now (very temporarily) reside happily in our (semi) new cookie jar.

Ok so maybe the first batch of cookies is already gone, I'm working on batch 2 right now :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We made it back to Greenfield, and before unpacking all our stuff, we put up our Christmas decorations! Rather than unpacking all our clothes (we put the big stuff up) we sipped egg nog and put up our tree & decorations (all while listening to Christmas music of course). Once everything was put up, we enjoyed a holiday favorite, Home Alone.

You might notice our tree is a little small. It's the one I had at my parents house in my room for years and since we're not going to be home much in December, we decided it would do this year. And hey, it's a tree, it's lit, and lots of fun memories are hanging from it, it's all we need!

Take me home to the paradise city...

I would hardly call Greenfield the paradise city, but it's sounding pretty darn good right now. I can't even begin to tell you how nice it's going to be to just open the door and Charlie can go to the bathroom, do my laundry in the comfort of my own home, and load up my trunk and drive home with groceries! Don't get me wrong, I'm really going to miss the "city life" but we're ready to be back to our own things; it's like we've been on a 3 month vacation (I'm not complaining, it's been great!)

After one final stop at Grahamwich, our Chicago favorite, we were on the road. We just couldn't leave without one final sandwich and popcorn....

Plus this little dude was already loaded up in the car ready to head home!

Next stop.... Greenfield!