Our 1st Christmas

We’ll we officially survived our 1^st Christmas as husband and wife. It was completely crazy with (3) days of non-stop Holiday jolliness. Instead of boring you with all of the details I’ll give you a quick schedule summary.

Christmas Eve Early Morning – Opened our gifts from Santa. I got an awesome pair of binoculars and a Starbucks gift card.

Christmas Eve Morning – Drop gifts off at dads. This would be the first year I’ve ever missed CE at my dads.

Christmas Eve Late Morning – Drop gifts off for the Schneider kids and chat

Christmas Eve Early Afternoon – Head to the White’s to meet-up and head east to the Sewald Christmas Eve celebration

Christmas Eve Night – We attended the Sewald celebration where I took honorable mention with my mud pie, The Great White Hunter got a new pair of gloves in the man gift exchange and I got a scarf (which I took) in the ladies gift exchange.

Christmas Morning – Woke up at the White’s and opened gifts with the entire family. The Great White Hunter and I scored with awesome gift cards. We then ate a quick meal of eggs Benedict prepared by Will’s sister Tanya that were amazing. We all ate enough to make ourselves sick or it could have been the tiny éclairs Deanna had set out.

Christmas Afternoon – Dinner at Cliff and Kathleen’s, The Great White Hunter's aunt & uncle, with the entire family

Christmas Evening – Dessert and Coffee at my dad’s house.

Day after Christmas – We went to a Holiday celebration in at my mom’s house with my uncle, my nephew, Scott, Sarah, the kids and Pam. We opened a ton of gifts and ate all day long. Needless to say by the end of this day we were happy we wouldn’t have to eat for a week.

These two former single people had a pretty crazy Christmas with our new “married” schedule but it was worth getting to spend all of the time with everyone in the family. Happy Holidays!

Santa came early...

Will was informed today that we need to have kids because our Christmas wrapping is just too nicely done.

A Cowboy Christmas Carol

Last night The Great White Hunter and I along with mom, Pam, Uncle John, Scott, Sarah, Riley, Wesley, Charley, Jack, Linda, Jim and Deanna all went to dinner and then attended A Cowboy Christmas Carol at UCCS Theater Works. It was presented by Waddie Mitchell a Cowboy poet from Nevada, that reminded me a lot of Baxter Black. The performance took place in a very small theater with not a bad seat in the house.

Waddie began the show by telling stories of his youth, children and wife in an old rhyming fashion. After some hot whiskey and a short intermission he along with (2) other individuals, one a fiddle player, presented a Christmas Carol brought to life by an old cowboy as Ebenezer. It was an amazing performance full of surprises and really funny moments. Even though it was past all of our bed times once the performance had ended everyone had a lot of fun.

The Broadmoor

This past Sunday we attended brunch at the Broadmoor as a Christmas celebration with The Great White Hunter’s family. We had Tanya, Casey, Allie, Linda, Steve, Courtney, Jim, Deana, Kathleen, Cliff and of course The Great White Hunter and me. This was a buffet style meal and included anything from the normal breakfast type food, sushi, salads, fruit, cheeses, pastries, all kinds of meats and many different types of sides. If I had to choose my favorite dish it would have been the eggs Benedict, it was delectable. Then came the desserts there were tarts, cheesecakes, cakes, a chocolate fountain, ice cream, desserts that included liquor, a cookie brownie type mixture and of course the family’s favorite bananas foster. Everyone sat and ate in shifts for about 2 and half hours. I believe Steve and The Great White Hunter were pretty close for the most food ate, but The Great White hunter may have won slightly. Well, actually it could have been his (5) rounds of banana foster that put him over the winning edge. I on the other stand within the pack but really impressed people with my dessert capacity. For those of you that know me you know dessert is my favorite. But, this was the first time The Great White Hunter’s family saw me with an all-you-can eat type environment. Needless to say I think I impressed them or maybe sickened them by my ability to put away the sweets. Once the display of eating was concluded we all rolled ourselves out the door to enjoy the amazing weather by the lake.  The Great White Hunter and I finished off the day with a nice nap, to help our stomach digest of course.

Our 1st Christmas Tree

Growing up my family always had (2) Christmas trees. One tree was real and was decorated with handmade lace decorations, babies breathe and sparkling white lights. While the other tree was fake and was thrown up on by all kid oriented Christmas decorations from hand made one of a kind popsicle stick frames to ornaments that had been given to us as we were growing up. When I bought my own home I choose to go the fake route with my Christmas tree and I choose to decorate it with ornaments that my parents had given me each Christmas while I was growing up. The other half of this relationship grew up with all kinds of real Christmas trees, even a yucca plant Christmas tree one year.  When The Great White Hunter purchased his first home he celebrated Christmas by not having a Christmas tree, yes he was the typical bachelor. This year when the holiday season rolled around we decided that we would start and family tradition, cutting down our own tree. Yes, along with the Griswolds we would travel from the city out into the wilderness to find a perfect tree that had a shining light on it while a choir sang Halleluiah in the background.  (Side note – due to my pickiness I was informed that this was no longer a family tradition because I take to darn long to choose a tree.)

We traveled along with my sister and her family north of Calhan to some land that my Brother-In-Law’s family owns. We started the trek around the woods to find (2) perfect Christmas trees. The weather was a bit chilly by lucky unlikely Audrey (from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) we weren’t frozen from the waist down and all stayed pretty warm. The Maranville family was the 1^st to find their perfect tree and after a full party search and a couple of maybes Will and I found our perfect tree.

When we arrived home with the tree we were pleasantly surprised that it was the perfect height and width and there was no cutting necessary. We decided to get all new decorations (green, gold and red balls) and The Great White Hunter was very excited to use some of his feathers from past hunting trips. 

Our 1^st tree is a perfect representation of our new world, the tree like our relationship is not always perfect (Side note – There are no perfect trees randomly placed out in the middle of nowhere) but when we add in the bulbs that are chic and shiny but simple (my two cents) and the feathers from a dead wild animal (The Great White Hunter’s contribution) the tree turns into an amazing piece of Holiday Cheer one that we are both pleased with.



Before



After

Weekend Visitors

This past weekend we were lucky enough to host Steve, Linda and little Ms. Courtney (The Great White Hunters  brother-in-law, sister and niece) for a quick stay on Friday evening. They were headed to the North Pole the next morning, so The Great White Hunter and I thought why not celebrate Christmas a little early. We had bought Courtney a Dora The Explorer tent for Christmas but decided to set it up for her to play in while she was here. It was a hit! Not only did she enjoy it but everyone got to take a trip through the tunnel and into the tent. We had a fabulous evening with them and were bummed when the tent got pack away to head west to the North Pole.

In Honor of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

This past week my bestie posted on her blog about the fact that it’s the most wonderful time of the year, since its NFR time. And in honor of her post I’ve posted a few photos that were taken BTK&M – Before The Kid & Marriage.

So here’s to my NFR trips of the past!

  

Our 1st Adult Purchase Cont.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about The Great White Hunter and I making our 1^st grown up purchase,  a vacuum, but not just any vacuum the LG Luv300B. Well, the vacuum finally arrived to our humble abode this past Friday and today Charley and I took it out of the box, put it together, started her up and took her for a test drive. Needless to say when people, mom I’m talking about you, say with a vacuum you get what you pay for I believe them. This vacuum is a little piece of heaven put in a dark blue body, with a long cord and with the controls right on the handle. It’s amazing and at this point I would recommend it to anyone.