A very merry Christmas

This year we took a more subdued approach to Christmas and presents - our house was our real gift to ourselves and cutting the last check to our contractor two days before Christmas also made for a humbling financial situation. We're happy to officially be done with the major hired work on the house and will now enter the "we're homeowners and have a list of projects longer than Santa's naughty list" phase.

But we tried to put all that aside and just appreciate having our first Christmas in our new house. I think we definitely succeeded!

On the 21st we have Dustin and Katie over for an early Christmas dinner of shepherds pie then we had cocoa and watched Elf - my favorite new "classic" Christmas movie, and in my opinion, Will Farrell's best movie. Ever. It was fun to start the celebrating early with them before they left to visit family in Alabama.

This year we jokingly created a new holiday by celebrating Christmas Eve Eve. My Mom and Larry came over for dinner on the 23rd, then I chauffeured everyone around the neighborhood to look at lights and envy the historic homes (we even saw people looking at lights via horse drawn carriage!), before coming back watch The (original cartoon) Grinch while enjoying pop corn and hot cocoa. After that we went to bed with a feeling of it being Christmas Eve. We woke up the next morning, made a big breakfast (including our version of figgy pudding with cream cheese icing), then opened our presents to each other in our PJs. It was fun knowing we'd get to do it again the next morning too. :) After Mom and Larry headed home, Wade and I dove into a few of those projects on our list - touch up caulking in our bathroom and painting the shutters on the house. Currently the shutters are black and it makes me nuts, I hate that fact that our house is black, grey, and white and devoid of color. So Wade took all our fake plastic shutters down, cleaned them off, then I started priming and painting them. Once he joined in the painting it went pretty quickly, but we ran out of time and couldn't get the second coat on before heading to our neighbors house for their Christmas Eve party.

That night we got to know our neighbors a little better and enjoyed a large party that was mostly their family and coworkers. After a few hours though, it became clear that the wine was taking a toll on Wade and his bottomless cup was not a good thing. We headed home, thankful that we only had to walk next door! We watched something from Netflix, and finally went to bed with Wade only feeling hung over rather than spending the night in the bathroom. :) That night the cats were allowed to sleep in bed with us (one of my Christmas present requests) but all four of us awoke with a start when some of the neighborhood cats seemed to be fighting in the alley, then we realized they were under the house. The noise seemed to be coming from everywhere since they were under the floor, so our cats freaked out and clearly we couldn't sleep. I fantasized about taking a hose under the house (our house is set up on piers) to flush out the cats, but it was so cold out I couldn't bring myself to actually get out of bed. They finally knocked it off after an hour and we all settled back in for some sleep.

Christmas morning came late - we were tired from the midnight cat madness, and Wade was definitely hung over. We finally got up, fed everyone breakfast, ate some cereal, then opened our presents. We did the pets stockings first and they proceeded to be entertained for the rest of the morning with meaty bones for the dogs and ping pong balls for the cats. We also leave all the wrapping paper in a giant pile that the cats tunnel and dig through for endless entertainment. We had another first this year - Wade and I got each other the same gift (a Wii game), which was pretty funny and a source of debate about how we got the lines of communication crossed on that one. After presents we ate, threw together a simplified version of eggplant parmesan for dinner and took it with us to Mom and Larry's for Christmas dinner with them and my aunt Cindy, uncle Rick, and cousins Curtis and Ericka. It was good to catch up with them and the best part of the night was the guys watching a movie while the girls played Rummikub. At one point, my cousin Ericka started laughing so hard that it became contagious and all the women burst into that delightfully uncontrollable laughter - you know, the kind that hurts and makes you cry. The men were thoroughly confused as to what was happening, but we had a great time... even if I did almost pee my pants.

The day after Christmas we met up with Robin and Chad and Kaitlyn for lunch at Peach's. It had been a while since we'd seen them so it was really good to catch up and hear about their new life in North Carolina. We did not envy the amount of cold and snow they were having to adjust to though - I can barely handle Florida "cold" let alone snow and ice! After we said our goodbyes to them we headed back home to do some more caulking in the guest bathrooms before heading to Megan and Jimmy's for dinner. We made it over there early to spend some time with them and their boys before dinner. It had been a while since we'd seen them too, so it was fun to see how big the boys are getting and to hear of their adventures in parenthood. By the end of the night everyones eyes were getting droopy so we headed home dreading work the next morning.

Today we got our last Christmas present to ourselves - insulation. We had some rodent damaged cruddy insulation in the attic, so we're replacing it in hopes it helps our little house keep it's temperature more constant. Today they ripped out the nasty batting and installed new batting on the knee walls in the attic and living room. Tomorrow the second crew will come in with the blown insulation to recover the ceilings. Thankfully, we're getting this done just in time to qualify for the tax break this year, but it'll only be a little kick back. One thing is for sure, our taxes are going to be a lot more complicated this time around and I am definitely dreading it (I get to do the family taxes).

Feels like home

Thursday night we made vegetarian shepherds pie to share with a neighbor. The mom had back surgery two weeks ago so the neighbors have all taken turns making dinner for the family over the last two weeks. It's been a pretty incredibly thing to witness - we thought our neighbors in Sarasota were nice for making cookies the day we moved in, but the level of support and friendship in our neighborhood has been really inspiring - we've already been invited out for guys/girls nights out, a dinner party, a Christmas Eve party, and a New Year's Eve party. It seems like icing on the cake - we love our house and we're just now being able to appreciate how much of a community actually exists in our neighborhood. Makes a house feel more like a home.

The fun continued this weekend when Jason and Rachel came for the weekend to visit. Friday night we went to a Christmas party at Wade's boss' house and I finally got to meet more of his coworkers who were all really nice, fun people. I am still amazed at how many people our age we've been meeting, so it's exciting to be making new friends. We left the party early to meet Jason and Rachel at our house. We unloaded their stuff and hustled over to catch a game of shuffle board before the courts closed. We had a lovely time - the guys enjoyed some winter ale while the girls sipped hot cocoa in the cold. The courts were pretty packed - there was live music, snacks and drinks for sale, and a party atmosphere. Apparently it was the last Friday of the season (the others are holidays), so they were making quite a night of it. We closed down the courts with a second round then headed home to give our guests a tour of the house. Finally we made their bed and we all crashed for the night.Saturday morning we awoke to rain so we had a slow start and all enjoyed sleeping in a little. Once we finally got moving we headed to the farmer's market to pick up our CSA share and kick off Jason's food vacation by eating our way through the food booths. We had a hearty breakfast, followed by a pastry, then picked up our veggies, and some extras at the organic farm stand. After that we strolled downtown, took a few gag "family" photos in a monster banyan tree, had some fantastic tea at Hooker Tea Company, and found the perfect BBQ spice blend at Savory Spice Shop. We also managed to run into quite a few people we've met over the last year, so it was pretty surreal being out in public and actually seeing people we know (that almost never happened in Sarasota). After that we cruised a few of the artsy places for Christmas shopping for Jason and Rach and finished at Milagros, the soap shop, for me to pick up a few more bars. That night we made big farm-fresh salads, corn on the cob, and quinoa for dinner followed by Wii for the boys while the girls made cookies. Unfortunately, our cookies bombed, but we had a great time making them! We all played a few board games then finally crashed into bed.

(Below is our annual running joke of our family photo - find a scenic tree and pose like we're taking a professionally posed family photo. Half the fun is getting ourselves posed and seeing if we can beat the self timer on the camera)

Sunday we slept in again and enjoyed it quite a bit. We made a big breakfast of pancakes before setting out on a walking tour of the neighborhood. We walked along the water, pointed out our favorite houses, talked about the interesting and unique architecture in the neighborhood and even walked all the way down to Old Northeast Tavern for a late lunch and beers/cider. On the way home we talked about the new boat Jason and Rachel had just looked at and might buy and it was exciting to hear about their hopes and dreams for it. We are also looking forward to bribing our way on to said boat when it's in the Caribbean some day. ;) But, we won't give up our quest to get them to St. Pete and made sure we showed them how lovely the local marina is for people wanting to live aboard their boat.

We were sad to see them go, but look forward to seeing them again in the spring before they set sail. We miss you guys already!

Having them in the house for the weekend was really wonderful and it cemented our feeling that Miss Magnolia is our home, and not just a house we've been blowing all our money on (haha). It was also good timing to soften the blow of our final bill from our contractor - which was pretty brutal and a painful reminder of why we needed to keep Christmas to a minimum this year.

Breaking in the house

Kellyn's impending visit spurred us to get into the Christmas spirit. Her Christmas last year was crappy - she was really sick and almost didn't make it home from the climate meetings in Copenhagen (which also sucked) due to awful weather. So, we decided our mission was to over compensate by making this the best Christmas ever. ;)

This was also our first test run of entertaining guests for the weekend, so we were excited to see how Miss Magnolia would perform. We spent the days before Kellyn's arrival decking our halls and hanging Christmas lights outside. We kicked off her visit with the 5k before her work meetings during the week, then she came to stay with us for a weekend of fun.

Friday night we met Mark and Annette at the Old Northeast Tavern for dinner and beer and cider on tap. We had fun catching up with them and hearing about the adventures of parenthood and the holidays. After dinner they headed home and we headed to a hallmark of Saint Petersburg - shuffleboard. St. Pete is home to the world's largest shuffleboard courts and the Shuffleboard World Hall of Fame. The complex was started back in the 1920s to give the growing vacation destination a social scene. They also hosted social events, card games, dances, lawn bowling (bocce), chess tournaments, and who knows what else. Over the decades things have changed, but the shuffle board, bocce, and chess still remain in the little stucco buildings near downtown. To bring in more people they offer free play and instruction on Friday nights and sometimes have drinks and live music (but iPod driven music at the very least). We got there early and after looking around and dropping a donation in the bucket, realized we had no idea what we were doing. So, we found someone who looked like she knew what she was doing and asked for help. She turned out to be one of the officers of the club and also someone pretty darn good at shuffleboard. She taught us how to play and what the terminology was then she played a round of doubles with us - Wade and I against Kellyn and our new friend Mary. We had a great time and enjoyed the ambiance - Christmas music, twinkle lights, and nice people. By the time we were done (and freezing), we looked around and noticed the huge complex was filling up - mostly with people our age (a shocking change from Sarasota!). It was a really fun way to spend a Friday night and I'm sure we'll be doing it quite a bit.

Saturday morning Kellyn and I headed to the market to grab veggies at the farmer's market and do a little shopping while Wade stayed home to plant some rye grass seed. We found some excellent veggies at the organic farm stand (it wasn't our CSA share week) and discovered some delightful gluten free jam cookies. We headed home with our treasures, had lunch and cookies with Wade, then headed to the local handmade soap store, Milagros, to buy Christmas presents for friends and family. It is my new favorite place to buy gifts and soap. :) Afterwards we strolled down to Sunken Gardens from the house to check out our local attraction. It proved to be an excellent excuse to lounge in the sun for some vitamin D and we also thoroughly enjoyed watching the flamingos dance and flap at each other. That evening we had Katie and Dustin over for dinner and made Mexican food - lots of farm fresh fajita veggies, refried beans, my homemade salsa, tacos, and guacamole. We polished dinner off with Katie's tasty no-bake cookies then headed off for our Christmas event of the evening: A Trans Siberian Orchestra Christmas concert. Wade and I were TSO novices for certain and we still can barely describe the event using words. If you were expecting the usual Christmas concert, (which I think a lot of folks were) you instead were ambushed with and 80's hair band version of Christmas. Seriously. Imagine Queen playing a Christmas concert - but with the synchronized head-banging flair of Van Halen. They did rocking renditions of Carol of the Bells and the Nutcracker melody that were my favorites. Oh, and did I mention they were all in tuxes with tails - even the crazy violin player who head banged while in a power crouch? Or that there were pyrotechnics, flames that changed color, lasers, flying stages, and heat we could feel in the nosebleed section? Words. cannot. describe. it. What I can describe is the incredulous reaction all 5 of us had - hysterical laughter afterwards (and during). It was an adventure to be sure and one I don't think any of us will ever forget. If the curiosity is killing you do a little snooping around on You Tube... :)

Sunday morning we all were a little slow going because we got home so late from the TSO concert. We finally rallied and had some breakfast before Kellyn and I headed out to do a little more shopping before Michelle came up to join us for the afternoon. We broke out all the cookie cutters and sprinkles and spent the afternoon making Christmas cookies. We had fun catching up and eating and obscene amount of cookies. Once we were thoroughly sugared, we walked to dinner at the local "better for you" fast food place called Evos before Michelle headed home.

(Below the former EDF office mates: me, Kellyn, and Michelle, with Carmel horning in)

Monday morning came faster than we were expecting and I took Kellyn to the airport. The pets were sad to see her go, and so were we. Now we're hoping she'll come back in the spring with Conrad (her fiance) so we can have more fun when it warms up.

Miss you Kellyn!

JingleBell 5k

This past Wednesday night we started a new holiday tradition - running the annual JingleBell 5k in downtown St. Pete (they shut down some of the streets downtown and lay luminaries along the 3mile path). Well, let's be honest, it was some running and lots of power walking on my end, but Katie, Dustin, Wade, and Kellyn made quite a showing. After the first quarter mile I was already sweating so we stopped to remove layers and take a photo op (below). Wade was a wonderful husband and offered to carry the extra layers for me without even so much as an "I told you so".

You may notice we look a little festive - that's because the 5k is a fun run - there were musicians along the way playing Christmas music, families with dogs and baby strollers, people in costume, and Santa listening to what the kids wanted for Christmas. For our part we wore reindeer antlers, santa hats, tinsel belts, neon necklaces, giant jinglebells, and red and green clothes. But it was freezing out so we had to wear enough layers to keep our teeth from chattering. The girls ran together while the guys forged ahead - we enjoyed the show along the way - buildings, dogs, and people wrapped in twinkle lights and a group of girls in elf costumes. Towards the end it started to rain so we hustled to the finish to find the guys and head to dinner. I made a power finish and ran as hard as I could for the last few hundred feet to make the finish line which I actually really enjoyed... too bad I can't always run that fast!

To celebrate our success (and lament the fact that we should actually do some training for next year) we headed out to dinner in downtown afterwards. Our first choice was packed so Dustin and Katie headed home while Wade, I, and Kellyn met up with a friend of hers from work (Kellyn is in town for a work meeting and staying the weekend to hang out and see Miss Magnolia). We found a new place to try and had a fun dinner before heading home to clean up and pick up Mom and Larry from the airport. They had a late returning flight from Texas so they stayed the night - we had a full house and it was a lot of fun! The cats really enjoyed snuggling Kellyn in bed in the attic and looked pretty put out when she left for her meeting the next morning.

The house is decorated full tilt for Christmas and the JingleBell run was our first holiday event - we now officially feel ready for Christmas and feel like residents of St. Pete. :)