Joe and I are really ringing the new year in with style. We're staying home from work with terrible colds/sinus infections and moping around the house. :( We can at least be thankful that we stayed healthy through the Christmas break. Our trip to Ohio and back to see my family for Christmas also included a couple stops in St. Louis to visit with Joe's family, as well as a side trip to Illinois to celebrate my sister and her fiance's engagement with a party thrown by his family. As you can see, there was lots of family time, but that's the way it should be at Christmas! I won't go into too much detail about our trip, but I will give a somewhat quick recap. Unfortunately I was a bad blogger and didn't take very many pictures, so instead I'll sprinkle a few shots of our Christmas decorations at home since I never got around to writing a post about them haha.
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| Our Christmas card display over the piano. |
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| My wedding ornaments from Joe's Grandma got a tree of their own. I love all these ornaments! |
The first 2 nights of our trip were spent in St. Louis at Joe's parents. Joe's mom took me and Joe's two sisters to see the musical "Wicked" on Saturday, and it was awesome! I'd never seen it before, and I'm glad that I have now. It was fun to see the backstory to the Wizard of Oz as imagined by the author. Hopefully it will come to Kansas City one day and I can drag Joe to see it with me.
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| Nut crackers and stockings hung on the dresser. You'll see in another picture why I couldn't really hang the stockings on the mantle. |
Sunday morning we headed to Ohio. We needed to be there by 4:00 to be in time for Grace's piano recital and we were just in time. Grace played 3 songs (1 solo and 2 duets) and did an amazing job with all of them. Mom even played one of the duets with Grace and she was great too. We spent the next few days at Mom & Dad's. We all got up early on Christmas for presents then just relaxed the rest of the day and played some new games we got. We even got a few inches of snow in Ohio on the day after Christmas which threw a wrench in some travel plans, but it all worked out ok. On Thursday night we checked out a local winery and brewery with my family then went out to eat in downtown Lebanon.
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| Sara and Andy on Christmas morning. I wasn't able to get a decent picture of everyone else, and I think I would get in trouble if I posted the pictures that I did get :) |
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| Me and Miss Mollie. She never misses a chance to get in on the action. |
Friday morning we all loaded up and headed to Bloomington, IL for the engagement party for my sister Sara and her fiance, Andy. The party was at Andy's brother's house and it was really great to meet his whole family and spend some time getting to know them. On Saturday morning we had brunch at Andy's parent's house in Peoria, IL then it was time for Joe and me to head back to St. Louis for one more night before going home. We celebrated Christmas with Joe's family on Saturday night and played some more new games. Finally on Sunday it was time to head home.
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| Our Christmas tree and the poinsettia garland I made. |
We decided to have people over on New Year's Eve, so Sunday night was spent making a few appetizer type things and trying to get all of our gifts and travel stuff unpacked and put away. Monday brought a full day of snow to Kansas City, and I left work after half a day to avoid bad road conditions. Of course this also gave me more time to get ready for our friends to come over that night :) We had a great New Years Eve, but Joe and I both woke up sick on New Years day and unfortunately it has only gotten worse :( Hopefully a good night sleep will help. Well, sorry for the long winded post, but I guess there was just a lot to share! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years as well. Before signing off for the night I just want to tell all of you thank you so much for reading the blog this year! Knowing that you all read it and enjoy it (I hope haha) is what keeps me writing. I'm hoping to keep the posts coming pretty steady this year, and thanks to a few new cookbooks I got for Christmas, there should be an abundance of cakes and desserts :)
Ohmygosh! I'm so glad you got to go to Wicked! It came to Wichita a couple years ago and I loved it so much. I pretty much belt all the songs in the shower. So glad you had an awesome Christmas break. Your decorations are beautiful! I must learn about said poinsettia garland. Sickness seems to be going around the workplace here too. I'm crossing my fingers my immune system continues to hold out! I hope you guys feel better!
ReplyDeleteI'm planning on getting the Wicked soundtrack so I can sing the songs in the shower too :) I didn't take any pictures of making the garland, but the instructions area here: http://houseandhome.com/design/diy-holiday-paper-decorations. The only thing is, the template they give makes the tiny flowers. I had to make a much bigger version. Joe and I are both feeling quite a bit better now. I hope we can get together with you sometime soon!
DeleteI hope we didn't make you sick. Greg was getting over a head cold, and I had it slightly, but now I'm all congested. I will go with you to a musical anytime that ones in town!
ReplyDeleteI was actually already feeling bad when you guys came over, so hopefully I'm not the one who got you all congested :( And yes, we need to find some good shows to see in KC!
DeleteLisa, it was so great having you and Joe here over Christmas, along with Sara and Andy, and Mary and Michael. Thanks for all the help you gave in the cooking and cleaning required for that many people. Mom really appreciated it.
ReplyDeleteLove, Dad