Christmas and Wedding Vacation 2013

Better late than never, right?

Well we're over a month into 2014 and I figured it was about time to blog again. I know I always say this, but I really do have a lot of things to post about. And HOPEFULLY I'll get around to posting them soon. You probably didn't notice, but there were no New Year's resolutions posted this year. That's because last year's were pretty much a bust. Except for the 1/2 marathon since I pretty much had to do that. I'll just try and have a good year I guess :)  We've been pretty busy in the several weeks since I've posted so I figured I should go in chronological order or else things will be left out.

That means we're starting with Christmas! We started our Christmas "vacation" this year with a late night drive to St. Louis in order to beat an impending snow storm. We spent a few nights in St. Louis and had Christmas with Joe's immediate family. That included lots of fun playing with our favorite nephew :) We had a nice relaxing time in St. Louis, but you'll have to take my word for it since I didn't get any pictures there. On Monday, Joe and I packed up and started the drive to Wisconsin. We got there a day early in order to spend a little extra time with Joe's grandparents.

It was just a little cold in Wisconsin. When we left St. Louis it was around 25 degrees and by the time we got to Wisconsin, it was around 4. Sooooo cold! And lots of snow as well. On our drive up the trees along the interstate were covered in ice. They were really pretty and I tried to get a decent picture of them:

On Christmas Eve, the rest of Joe's family came in town, and then on Christmas day we drove to Milwaukee to visit with Joe's dad's side of the family. We had a nice brunch with them, then exchanged gifts and visited for a while. Again, you'll have to trust me that we were actually there, since I didn't get any pictures :(

Then it we headed back to spend the rest of Christmas day with Joe's Mom's family where we filled up on some more delicious food and were thoroughly entertained by these crazy kids!

Albert, Emmet and Miles. 

Miles, Albert, Emmet and Tess. Tess is clearly not amused by the crazy boys. 

I'm including Joe's Grandma & Papa because they entertained us too :)

It was really fun to watch them all play together. The littlest one slept almost the entire evening, but it I still enjoyed holding her for a while :)

The day after Christmas, Joe's Dad and Papa got up bright and early with us (though really it was dark) and drove us to the airport in Madison so we could catch our flight to Louisiana for the wedding of my sister Mary and her new husband Michael. We landed in a MUCH warmer climate than we'd left, and Joe and I both decided we preferred the warm weather haha. As soon as we got to Lake Charles, we headed to Mary and Michael's to help with last minute wedding details and do a quick Christmas gift exchange with my parents and sisters. Then that evening, several of our out of town family members came over for a fish fry. Good food and good company and guess what... no pictures! My first picture in Louisiana was when all the girls went out for lunch on the day before the wedding. It was fun to relax and chat/catch up with everyone.

Clockwise from Left: Megan, Allison, Kathy, Grace, Sara, Mary, Mom, Me (We were missing bridesmaids Karen and Lucy)

Then we went to get our nails done and before we knew it, we were heading to the rehearsal dinner. No pictures from that either, but it was basically a big group of all our friends and family and tons of amazing food. Needless to say, it was a really fun night!

Saturday started with a trip to the salon to get our hair done. I did get photographic proof of that haha! (I think I need to fix my photography priorities)

Gracie - AKA Goldilocks

The wedding wasn't until the evening, so the day really was pretty relaxing since we didn't have to run around like crazy. Of course in the end we were still rushing a bit to get out the door to the church. But that pretty much happens at all weddings, right? Here's one of the only pictures I have of Mary and Mom before the wedding.

The wedding was beautiful and reception was a blast! I did get this picture of the Bride and Groom the next day at the post wedding brunch. I'm pretty sure at this point they were just counting down the minutes until they were on the plane to Hawaii!

Congratulations again to Mary and Michael! Joe and I had a great time celebrating with you :) You throw a good party!

Well, I think that's a long enough post for now. I PROMISE there will be a couple of recipe posts coming up soon, and as usual another cake post. Until then, stay warm!