what I did on my christmas break

I had four glorious days off for Christmas break, which I made sure to savor every second of whether I was in a state of consciousness or not. In those four days:

Brian and I went to the Denver Zoo to experience "Zoolights". Basically you walk around the zoo freezing your butt off with a cup of overpriced hot chocolate, looking at all the lights that are in the shapes of animals (I suppose this fools the average 5 year old, but I knew better). The real game though is to spot any real animals that are actually dumb enough to stay out in the below freezing weather. It was actually a nice walk though and something different to do:

On Christmas Day, our awesome neighbors and good friends Amanda and Ryan were kind enough to have us over to their house to experience Christmas with them and their entire extended family. Good food and games were had by all, and one by one we outlasted every member of their family well into the night with the help of several competitive and intense games on their new Wii. Oh, and I suppose all the alcohol that was consumed didn't hurt either:

And finally, Baby Girl and I went skiing (no lectures please, I get it) with my good friend Angela from college and her family, while Brian had to stay home because he was on call all week. We had a blast. And apparently, her boyfriend skiied with an engagement ring in his pocket all day, hoping I'd leave Angela alone for one sad second so he could do the deed. Well this didn't happen of course, but he was able to propose to her the day after I left (congrats Angela!):

These may or may not be actual pictures from the above mentioned events, by the way.

In other news, there's also nothing like a few days off work to give me a little motivation on the domesticated front. My gosh, I don't know what's come over me. Perhaps I'm just finding time now to live my inner domestic goddess DREAM! Okay, so that is absolutely not the case, but I am proud to say I've gotten my excel spreadsheet of addresses for family and friends alike up-to-date (read: created and completed from scratch), and I've designed and ordered 85 holiday cards to send out - shortly, when they arrive in the next day or so. No sense doing it half ass.

So if THAT isn't a sure sign of apocalypse, then the $500 worth of frames and picture printing we did this week is for sure. Seriously, is this what "nesting" is all about? I really hate that term by the way, but whatever it is, it's kicking my ass.

So yeah, we're finally in the middle of printing and framing a bunch of Brian's pictures from our various adventures over the last couple of years. The ones that we've matted so far look awesome - Brian's job tomorrow in between games of NCAA Football 2009 is to hang them up. Pictures to be posted soon.

And lastly, conversations in the evening have more often been going something like this:

Me: Uggg, I am SO FULL! Did I eat too much?!

Brian: Uh, yes.

and

Me: Bleeeeeh I am STILL so hungry.

Brian: Oh my god.

I hope everyone has a happy New Year! We're going back over to our neighbors house for a party on New Year's Eve to celebrate - Christmas was just the warm up.

Emerald Lake

Last weekend Sarah and I decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some snowshoeing since the weather was so beautiful. A year ago we tried to hike up to Emerald Lake, but at the time we didn't own any snowshoes and didn't quite make it. Eventually the well packed trail from all the tourists ended and we were up to our knees in snow. This time, we were more well prepared. The trail starts at Bear lake, and as usual it is a very popular spot with the tourists. The trail quickly thins out as you get farther from the lake and eventually Sarah and I were the only ones on the trails. The hike up to the lake is pretty short, about 2 miles I think, but man is it a nice hike. At the base of the lake you look up at Hallet Peak and Flat Top Mountain. This would be a great place to catch a sunrise and hopefully later this year I can hike up there in the dark to catch one. I can only imagine the beauty of the sun lighting up the face of Hallet Peak. On the drive out of the park we stopped a few times to watch the large herd of elk that was grazing in the meadows. During the summer months you can hardly see the elk because they head up into the high mountains, but during the winter, they hunker down in the valley and are easy to spot. The coolest part of the day though was after we exited the park. As we were driving I spotted a coyote walking just off the side of the road. As I crested the next hill we saw three deer standing there. We knew what they coyote was up to so we stopped to watch. Eventually the coyote run up to the deer but one of them charged him and chased his but all over the hill. Then then had a stand off for about 5 minutes before the deer charged him again and ran him off for good. It was like the National Geographic show right before our eyes. Oh, and you know when you dog scoots it's ass across your carpet? Yeah, coyote's do that too, so you can't get mad. It's genetic.

Flickr!

three generations

This post is for Grandma Bishop - she wanted to see a picture of my mother with the four of us girls, and the new little grandbaby:

 
And this is actually what Christgiving is like in the Reese household: We are missing a dog, but I think we did pretty good to get most of the family members in. I was hoping to post some pictures from Soos Christmas, but we didn't take any. I know there are pictures somewhere though...

But we had a great time in both Kentucky for Christgiving and in Michigan for Christmas and Kevin's commissioning, surviving with minimal family drama on both accounts. We'll be sticking around Denver for the actually holidays with no real plans yet - I'm sure we'll go snow shoeing/hiking/skiing and such.

And in other news, as everyone already knows, we're having a girl! But I already knew that. Or maybe I just had a 50/50 chance and guessed right. Brian says the name Switchblade Dangerous is gender neutral, but I don't think so.

More to come on the name later, dare I say I think we've reached a decision.

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas everyone. Just like last year, I cherry picked a bunch of pictures from our adventures over the last year and made a video, complete with music, and I didn't even use a Mac.

Please enjoy:

my husband is the bomb dot com

It's my anniversary!! Happy anniversary to ME! Oh, and Brian too. So this post is going to be dedicated to my amazing husband and marriage.

Brian and I got married relatively...quickly. I remember calling my mom to tell her I was getting married, to which she got kind of quiet, trying to recover from the heart attack she just had. And then finally I heard, "So. Who's Brian?"

Maybe I knew this one could be different when when I got my car stuck in a mudslide on top of a cliff in the middle of the mountains in the pouring rain at night. And it wasn't even that Brian never got upset and calmly found us a ride to town to a hotel, but I distinctly remember both of us giggling like school kids who just got away with a lot of trouble and couldn't wait to do it again. Or maybe I knew this man could hang with my misadventures when my car blew up 100 miles from El Paso with every piece of worthless crap I had to my name in it, and he left the Palms in Las Vegas that night to catch the red-eye to Albuquerque and drive down to Texas to pick my butt up after I sold my car to the junk yard. We had been dating for 3 months. And can you believe this man proposed to me 3 weeks later?

In the past couple years we've had lots more adventures - battling winter snow storms in Chile, a beautiful 10 days backpacking in Mt Rainier, a romantic two weeks in New Zealand, with dozens of hiking and backpacking trips in Colorado mixed in between. But some of my favorite times with Brian have been the simpler nuances of daily life. Like when we go to the grocery store, and his favorite game is to hide from me in the aisles when I'm not looking and watch me turn in circles like a confused mother who swears her 5 year old son was right here....but I secretly do think it's pretty funny.

All joking aside, Brian is the most patient, loving, happy go lucky man I have ever met. I'm still not really sure how I got so lucky, except that I stalked him on MySpace and asked if he wanted to have a beer and catch up because I hadn't seen him in a year or so, and the next thing I know we were getting married. It was pretty awesome.

We have big plans for the future - wandering in Europe, trekking in Nepal, waving the Michigan St flag on top of Mt Kilimanjaro. And kids! Brian is going be such a great Dad, even if he is high-fiving our kids for various mischief behind my back. He's really excited, he keeps telling me to "hurry up!" and "make that baby faster!" Well dear, perfection takes time...

My mother always told me I needed someone to "save me from myself." Well, I'm not sure I found that in Brian so much as I acquired a partner in crime instead, but that was exactly what I was going for.

I love you baby!!