End of the Holidays

So I'm pretty glad the holidays are over even though I'm not looking forward to January & February - the 2 most depressing months of the year. Back in Memphis they didn't bother me so much since it started turning to spring in February and I had hockey to go to. Go figure, I move to an actual winter climate and there's no hockey team here! Not true, there is KU Jayhawks club hockey & they play just down the street but it's about 30 degrees in the building they play in so it's just about too cold to go to very often. I'm sure we'll go to at least one game though. I really wish KC would get an NHL team or at least a minor league hockey team. Independence is getting a CHL team which will be fun since the Riverkings are in that league. I can drag out my old gameworn R'king jersey with the puck marks all over it and wear it over there - I don't think they'll have a team for another year or 2 though. We did see the arena being built when we headed out of town for Christmas; at least it's next to the highway so it will be easy for us to get to albeit 45 minutes away!

I'm just not looking forward to the bitter cold & snow/ice of the Jan/Feb months - at least that's what we had the past 2 winters and it doesn't look like this year will be any different. And there's nothing to look forward to until March - my birthday and NCAA basketball tourney (praying Memphis & Kansas keep playing well & make tournament again but praying they don't play each other again - that was TOO much drama!). Oh well, it will be kind of nice to get back to the normal routine. Poor Darin though, he was on vacation for the last 3 weeks! I can't imagine how hard it will be for him to get up tomorrow!

We do have good tv to look forward to, as pathetic as that sounds. 24, Lost and Battlestar Galactica will all be back in the next few weeks - that will help get through the cold winter nights!!!

I also got some new books to read - my mother-in-law & sister-in-law each bought me a Philippa Gregory book - books 2 & 3 in the Wideacre series that I haven't read yet - and I used some of my Christmas money & Borders coupon to buy book 1. Too bad I had just started another book so they will have to wait a little while.

I also have several knitting projects that I'm working on - several upcoming birthdays and new babies so I need to figure out what I'm doing for those. I'll post more on knitting later - that's a whole post in and of itself!

I'm going to go make some macaroni & cheese from scratch for supper now - yummy! We deserve it after putting away all the Christmas decorations today. By the way, Darin made an inventory of all of our Christmas decorations when we got it all out and putting it away was so much faster & easier because of it! I highly recommend doing that, especially if you have a ton like we do (27 boxes including the trees, gift wrap & tins)!

Christmas Presents

Christmas rocked this year - as always! I'm an only child so I LOVE getting presents! But I think I love giving presents even more.

Favorite presents given:

To my mom - 2 scarves I made - one while we were there visiting from some yarn she had bought years before - I love giving something I've made. The one I made while we were there was pretty cool looking - it was made with 2 yarns, a navy and a silvery-blue ribbon yarn. I may have to make another for myself!

To my dad - impossible to buy for - the only thing he wanted was a specific level so we found it and now I want one - it measures exactly where the hanger on your picture is and tells you where exactly to put the nails! I so need that!

To Darin - don't really have a fave this year - I'm a little bummed because I didn't get him anything totally cool - last year was the remote-controlled helicopter that I surprised him with - but this year I just couldn't think of anything awesome. He wanted a Playstation 3 and the latest Grand Theft Auto but we don't have that kind of cash. Hopefully they'll come down in price next year so I can get it for him. I did get him some pretty cool t-shirts - a Predators Tootoo jersey shirt, a throwback blue Penguins Crosby jersey shirt, and a "Hoosiers" Jimmy Chitwood Hickory jersey shirt - he saw that online & sent me the link just to get a rise out of me because his obsession with Hoosiers annoys me. I bought the shirt because I knew he didn't think I would! I'm not saying Hoosiers isn't a great movie, I just don't need to watch it every single time it's on. I also got him the last season of the Simpsons and 2 books. Again, nothing too exciting.

I think my favorite things I gave this year were these little antiqued angels that we had in our wedding reception - they are actually placecard holders but we had them on the tables holding pictures of us as kids. I had about 50 of them total and I ended up with about half after my mom and Aunt Phyllis divided up the rest. I gave one to my mother-in-law & sister-in-law and then to several close friends. I also gave one each to all the ladies in my office. I looked up a scripture about angels and put that on a tag with the angel - I hope they liked that. I would have done this much sooner but didn't get the angels from my mom's house until this past summer. I had almost forgotten about them!

Favorite gifts received:

From my parents: A new camera! I so desperately needed one - my old one was not too great expect for close-ups and the view screen was miniscule! I got a Nikon Coolpix and am in love with it. I can't wait for baseball season so I can try out the zoom and panorama features from the upper deck. Oh, and the camera is red - my favorite color!

From Darin: A beautiful Brighton silver heart bracelet - it matches the necklace & earrings he gave me a few years ago - I love it! He totally surprised me with it too since I didn't even ask for any jewelry this year! He gives awesome presents though and my stocking rocked again this year as usual.

From my mother-in-law: Polka-dotted galoshes!! I'm so excited about these - I realized that I needed these since my work pants keep getting soaked in the snow this winter. This is the first winter since I moved here that I have worked outside of the house. In previous years I just stayed in when it snowed, now I have to get out. So I found these galoshes on Amazon and put them on my wish list. My fabulous mother-in-law who buys the best gifts anwyay bought them for me. I just had to take a picture of them and share:

The best part of Christmas though was visiting my friends Jenny & Patti in Memphis and getting to spend a week with my parents. It was wonderful to finally meet Jenny's 5 month old daughter - what a sweetheart! And it was fun to host Christmas with Darin's mom and sister's family yesterday. I guess now it's time to take down the decorations - I may be too lazy for that this weekend though!