Easter version 2013

After extensive pondering, I recently made a conclusion about holidays: I never get around to blogging about a specific holiday until long after it’s gone. Just when people are wrapping up their Thanksgiving posts, I’m all “Oh hey! Let’s talk about what I did on the fourth of July!” 
I like to think of it as my own unique branding of blogging. 
Easter was the first holiday we hosted at our house, so we created a small menu in honor of the occasion:
antipasto
chicken soup
roast beef and potatoes
ham and more potatoes
green beans
bread
brownies with cool whip (!!) and sorbet
homemade chocolate and peanut butter eggs
But let’s be honest. Last year it was just the two of us and we cooked almost as much food.
We had my father in law, our friends Daniel, Scherrie, Zach and Alex. I like to think I made the life of two single men better because Zach and Alex both left my house with enough food for three meals.
I still like decorating Easter eggs and every year I come up with a new and never before seen decorating method. My bowl of solid colored eggs is proof that, much to my sorrow and a great waste of pins on Pinterest, I ran out of time to do anything fancy. 
Mom and Elizabeth had some decorating time on their hands. Elizabeth texted me this picture on Saturday night. It’s like they turned their marble coffee table into a bowl of eggs. 
After dinner we played Apples to Apples. I won’t say who won, but her name starts with S and she has a tendency to blog about holidays long after they happen. 
Sometime I like to pretend the cards describe the personality of whoever has them. In this particular case I chose not to do so. I have no desire to be aged, confused, insulting, manly, offensive, selfish, or shallow. But I have no problem accepting perfect.  

the holiday abroad

We decided to take our Valentines celebration on the road this year by visiting the Parthenon in Greece.

Or perhaps it was the Parthenon in Nashville. The exact location is a mere technicality.

The earliest dinner reservation available that evening was 9:15, so we had plenty of time to kill. I spent more than a little of that time reading an article about Nashville’s most eligible singles. In retrospect, Valentines Day may not have been the most romantic time I could have chosen to read that article.

We had a few pre-appetizers at a different restaurant before the main meal at the fancy restaurant because if you’re going to travel all the way to Greece to celebrate true love, you might as well hit up all the restaurants. I kept Christopher entertained by telling him one of the world’s most anticlimactic stories about the time I mixed up my purse with Jenn’s. As I got to the punchline, “But I mean, OBVIOUSLY it was her purse because no one else was around at 5:30 in the morning,” the waitress leaned over and said, “All the sketchy stuff happens at 5:30 in the morning.”

Well. Had I known you were eavesdropping I would have prepared a better story.

(How many self-portraits can I include in one post?)
I realize this picture makes it look like we intended to pose with the white lamp over Christopher’s shoulder. We did not. I was also unaware of the hair sticking straight up off my head. These are the types of problems you deal with when continually forced to take self portraits. Next Valentines I’ll be sure to bring a pack of photographers with me when we spend the holiday in Paris.
Paris, Tennessee that is.

half this blog is about him so one more post won’t make a difference

Christopher doesn’t like when I write posts ALL about him.
Sometimes I do it anyway.
I love him even though he has strong opinions very contrary to my own about how meat should be thawed.
I love him even though the other day he was sick and kept insisting that the house was too cold. I felt like we were suddenly vacationing in the tropics and I hadn’t packed the appropriate clothes.
I love him even though we have 402 books on the bookshelves, most of which (370 to be exact) have titles like this. In other words, they’re books I would probably never buy. 
It’s very obvious which of the remaining 32 books were my contributions to our library.
I love him so much that I’m always passing along interesting things I hear because I know he likes that kind of thing. Like that time I told him that studies have shown the more birthdays you have the longer you live.
Life with me is so educational.

three’s a charm

It’s only the third day of the year and I’m already behind schedule. I wasn’t going to do a 2012 recap because this entire blog is a recap, but here I am, jumping on the year in review bandwagon.
It looks like the lucky number last year was 3.
I made three new friends who I love them SO MUCH. They’re all smiles (except when Sam is grumpy which is 88% of the time), kissable cheeks and chubby thighs (I’m not talking about you, Jenn! I’m talking about Molly!), and chocolate. I really don’t know why you’re at this blog when you could be visiting them.
I turned 23 and spent the weekend in Washington DC.
I visited three presidential homes. I was not invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. but hope springs eternal.
I lived in three new homes which meant three different living rooms and three different furniture sets.
I’ve veered slightly off the three path and attended four Army events worth noting. Attending the FRG treasure class is hardly worth mentioning.
I wonder if the prominent number for this year will be four. Maybe I’ll have quadruplets. That would throw a little bit of crazy into things.

The snow only lasted a few hours but it still counts as a white Christmas

I wasn’t going to write about our Christmas until tomorrow or Saturday (procrastinators unite!), but I’m sitting on the couch soaking my foot and since I have nothing else to do, I might as well blog. For those wondering (which is probably exactly zero of you), I appear to have an infected cut thanks to the day I smashed my foot against a shelf at Walmart four weeks ago. I guess injuries are to be expected when you’re running around in heels trying to find the shortest check-out lane.

We spent Christmas Eve next door with the relatives. It’s a pity they ended up with such a skinny tree.

This was Christopher’s first Christmas with my family, so he was able to experience things like Matthew and Aaron protecting themselves during the annual wrapping paper fight. 
Molly was there in all her loud and boisterous glory. She was very excited that Daniel and Erika gave her a check for Christmas. She was boasting to Zachary that he didn’t get a check too (in reality it sounded more like “Zach! ZACH!! Did you get a check? DID YOU GET ONE? You didn’t?! I GOT ONE AND YOU DIDN’T!!!”), but he wouldn’t have liked the check anyway because it was really a gift certificate for a pedicure. 
EXACTLY at midnight it started snowing!! It was truly a Christmas miracle. I was so excited. Last Christmas I was surrounded by palm trees and missed the snow so much. 
Christopher was really! excited! on Christmas morning.
We spent the day at home doing two of my favorite things- giving gifts and eating food.
We gained a new family member this Christmas. 
Aaron gave the fish to Dad so he’d have some company at work. I’m really hoping he’ll last through New Years but I’m not holding my breath. Aaron forgot to buy fish food so the fish  hasn’t eaten in two days. He’s still unnamed but based on previous fish experiences, he’ll probably be named Joe. Over the years we’ve had Joe, Joe Jr, Joe the Third, and Joe the Fourth. All have died in infancy which has really discouraged me from naming any of my sons Joe.
I spent some quality time during the day posing with the giraffe mask Daniel and Erika brought back from South Africa. 
It seemed like the thing to do at the time.