Happy birthday to me

This year we took a rather laid back approach to my birthday. The night before we enjoyed a great dinner at our favorite Mexican place with my mom, step-dad, and friends CJ and Michelle. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we stumbled upon a tradition at the restaurant we hadn't encountered before: Mariachi Monday. There was a full 6 piece band in costume playing that night and we enjoyed the great music which included the Spanish version of Happy Birthday for me "Feliz Cumpleanos", complete with sombrero.

After that we met up with my Aunt Cindy and headed over to a movie theatre that served beer, wine, and ice cream(!) so I could have an ice cream bar while we watched Avatar (which was awesome). Unfortunately it was pretty crowded so we got stuck in the seats up front, but Mom, Larry, and Cindy were good sports about having to sit in the front row - it was a bit of an "immersive" experience given how close the seats were to the screen.

For my actual birthday, Wade made me a fabulous breakfast of biscuits, hashbrowns, and eggs. Mmmm.... I'm so lucky that Wade's such a great cook! After that I opened presents before we headed down south to check out a state park we haven't been to yet: Oscar Scherer. We hiked some trails and took lots of pictures (once we process them all we'll add them to our Picasa site). It was a bit chilly that day, but thankfully the sun was out.

On the way home we had dinner at the quaint Spanish Pointe Pub. The view was beautiful, the rum runners dee-lightful, dinner was tasty, and the sunset was picture perfect. We practically had the deck to ourselves so it was a really laid back way to end the day.

Once the sun went down we were essentially freezing, so we high tailed it home for hot brownie sundaes instead of birthday cake. It really doesn't get any better than that in my book.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve we headed up to Anna Maria for dinner, presents, and our new tradition with my mom and step-dad: Christmas cookies at sunset on the beach. Two years ago when my step sister, Janis, and her husband, Miles, were visiting for Christmas we kicked off the tradition with margaritas on the beach. :) I am a self confessed Cookie Monster, so it seemed appropriate to do cookies on the beach. I made gluten free sugar cookies (w/ icing) and snickerdoodles on Christmas Even morning (they were awesome if I do say so myself) so we'd have fresh treats for the beach. We has a great dinner then booked it down to the beach to catch a cloudy sunset. So we decided to make the most of it - you can just barely make out our Christmas wishes in the sand.

Christmas morning we spent at home with our furry kids. It was nice to spend the morning in our PJs eating cookies for breakfast and opening presents. We did the kids presents first and Hilo in particular fell in love with a toy that Wade's mom sent - it's a tweeting bird on a spring that cats can bat around. It was definitely the spunkiest we've seen him since he's been sick, so it was really wonderful to see him happy and playing (see below). After this picture the bird ended up in his mouth, then on the ground with him while he kicked it. Hilarious.

For dinner we headed over to my aunt and uncles for dinner with the family. It was nice to be with the whole family and see my cousins who were home from college.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

December

The month has gone by in a flash it seems. We wasted no time getting out Christmas decorations and lights up. The beginning of the month brought us expensive visits to the vet for Hilo (aka Baby or Kitten), the youngest of our furry "kids". He's been battling the equivalent of kitty kidney stones which is life threatening for cats. After some emergency trips in and a long weekend stay he required some serious nursing at home. At one point he was skin and bones and was too weak to even jump into my lap, which was heartbreaking to see.

We were planning to head to Miami the first week of December to turn in Wade's graduation paperwork and see off our friend Marilyn before she moved to the Virgin Islands, but due to Hilo's issues, Wade had to make the trip alone while I hand fed Hilo 5 times a day plus stuff meds and water into him. I was really disappointed to not be able to go see Marilyn, but it was a huge relief to see the kitten eating on his own by the time Wade got back. Below is a picture of the sleepy Kitten on our bed.

The second week of December I spent in DC for work. It was a great to see my friends in town that week, but nasty weather book-ended my trip and left me stranded in airports/on the tarmac for 13 hrs on both Monday and Friday. This also made me miss a key meeting I was going to DC to lead, which was a frustrating way to start the week. But I was just happy my flight wasn't one day later - DC was buried in snow the night I left!