Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I just wanted to pop in and send out some Christmas wishes since I'm pretty positive I won't be around much tomorrow.
I finally got all my presents bought or received in the mail and today I'll finish up wrapping them. I'll also be helping my Mom with baking/preparing food for our snack night tonight and our Christmas dinner tomorrow. At some point I still need to watch It's a Wonderful Life and Elf.

Tonight we are also going to be Skyping with Sean so we can see him open all his presents and open our presents from him. I'm so excited to see him and Boomer, even though I know Skyping is not Sean's favorite thing, as he is a bit shy about that.

I've still been taking pictures for my 25 Days of Christmas Photo Challenge, but I haven't been sharing them on Flickr or Facebook, as I can't edit them. So those won't be making an appearance until I get back to Italy.  However, I will post one photo on here, as I've been playing around with shaping bokeh and am excited with the results.

Also....the day after Christmas I will be posting an AWESOME giveaway. So make sure you come back on the 26th to see what that involves.

Hope each and every one of you has a great Christmas!

Home for Christmas Update

After being home for a week, I thought it was high time I did a blog post and updated ya'll on what I've been up to.

The plane ride to the States wasn't bad, but it was soooo long. Almost 12 hours on one flight is too much. I didn't have any problems though and ordering the vegetarian meal was an awesome idea. Not only was I one of the first served each service, but the food was really good. Although I did feel gypped when I got fruit for dessert and everyone else was getting chocolate brownies or chocolate mousse.

All that I've been doing since I've been home could be divided into three catergories: Eating, Shopping and Visiting.  I've seen almost everybody but one aunt, one of my good friends from high school and a couple of my blogger friends. I've eaten Mexican food twice and plan on eating it a few more times. I've had Starbucks, shopped at Hobby Lobby and Target and done some thrift store shopping as well.

What I haven't done is taken massive amounts of pictures. At least outside. The weather so far has been a bit rainy and when it hasn't been I've been out and about. I took a TON of pictures at one side of my family's Christmas functions and had such a good time taking silly pictures with family and just enjoying their company.

My cousin Sarah and I doing our silly faces

We had to do the usual "We Miss You Sean" sign to let know him know he was missed.

This is most of the girls in the family on my Mom's side. What makes this picture hilarious is my youngest cousin crying hysterically. She didn't have a nap that day and she was DONE.

Last night I met up with a few of my best friends from high school at our favorite Mexican food place and had a great night catching up with them and scarfing down tacos and enchiladas.

Coming up the next few days I have our annual family snack night on Christmas Eve. I'm having a devil of a time finding normal sized jalapenos for my bacon wrapped jalapenos. I also had an unfortunate cooking accident the other day when I subbed waxed paper for parchment paper and the oven started smoking. Lesson learned!

Hoping all of you are having a wonderful holiday season! I cannot wait for Christmas!

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

Today is my last day in Italy before I leave for the States to spend Christmas. Right now I have mixed emotions. I'm super excited about going home, but sad to be leaving Sean (even though he's been acting like a Grinch the past few days). I'm also not looking forward to the ridiculously long time it takes me get to Oklahoma from Italy, but such is life. Plus it'll all be worth it.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to blog while I'm in the States. I'm sure I'll pop in from time to time to update ya'll on what I've been up to.

In closing, here are a few of my very favorite Christmas songs for you to enjoy!

I'm In a Glass Case of Emotion!

My emotions have been all over the place this past day week. I was sick and cranky last weekend, happy about going to see my family, elated over the wickedly good deal I got at the purse factory yesterday (see picture below) and the fact I made it on to Flickr Explore yesterday (again, picture below) and then crying this morning because I'm going to miss Sean so much when I go back to the States.

I'm also a little perturbed right now at a friend who can't seem to make time in their, oh so busy schedule, to send back a message on FB. In fact, this person is awful about ever answering any message I send them on FB. I don't get it? How hard is it to simply write back a message? It's not like they are never on, because I see them online all the time. Makes me think we aren't such good friends after all. And that my blog readers, is a pretty crappy feeling.

Anyway, I've got a lot planned this next week before I head back to the States for 3 glorious weeks of friends and family time. I haven't been to the States since Sean's R&R in April of 2010, so I am well overdue for a trip back to the good old US of A. I'm already imagining all the great places I will shop (Hobby Lobby, the mall, Old Navy, Goodwill) and the places I will eat (Taco Bueno, Qdoba, Mazzios) and the drinks I will sip on (Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes). Oh..and seeing friends and family is pretty cool too. :)

This weekend Sean and I are having our 2nd annual snack night and Christmas Vacation movie night. It's a tradition that my own immediate family does every Christmas, but Sean and I started doing our own version of it last year, when we weren't able to go home for Christmas. We'll also be opening our gifts to each other since we won't be together on the actual day of Christmas. Then I'm hoping we can fit in a quick trip to Venice so I can look for a couple of last minute presents for people.  This year for our snack night we are making the following:

Mexican Pinwheels
Little Smokies with BBQ sauce
Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos
Spinach Dip
Caramel Bars

(If you want the recipe to any of the above, let me know and I'll try to post them)

Here is the picture that was Explored on Flickr yesterday as one of the 500 most interesting photos uploaded that day.

This photo comes from a Christmas session I'm doing with a friend's baby.

Without further ado, the pictures of my new purse!

I actually went to the store in search for a dark brown purse to match my boots and favorite wedge heels, but alas, there weren't really that many brown purses to choose from. Seriously, maybe one or two. I guess brown is not in this year. So, instead I "settled" for this lovely gray purse, that has brown stitching. It was in the "sale" room and it was a steal at 50 euro. Especially when I looked at the before price.

50 euro for a purse that was originally 218 euro? Yes, please!

Christmas Tidbits You Should Know About

I've found a few Christmas items of interest here and there in the last few months that I wanted to share with you, my readers.  Some you probably already know about, but I think there are a few you might not have seen before.

First up: This awesome Christmas Photo Checklist that I found on Pinterest. It comes from Rebecca Cooper's blog. Very neat list with a ton of suggestions on it. You can find it here.

I've talked about the Christmas Advent House before, but last week I was contacted by a company that sells the plans and supplies to build your own advent house. It's half the price, so I told them I'd be happy to pass the info along to my readers. Go here for that link.

Also, I just discovered that Etsy will give you gift recommendations for your Facebook friends based on their interests, how awesome is that?

I actually mentioned this awesome advent calendar last year, but I wanted to bring it up again, simply because it is so awesome. It's a random acts of kindness advent calendar. Click here to give it a look.

I mentioned the Michael Buble Christmas album a couple of months ago, but I've been eyeing (and previewing on a daily basis) the She & Him Christmas album on iTunes for awhile. I finally bought it today. Love it!

If you're into Christmas vacation, then you don't want to miss out on these shirts on Ebay:

Last, but not least, this year I'm going to participate in a 25 Days of Christmas photo challenge. Basically you just take a picture everyday for the first 25 days of December. The subject should be something that says "Christmas" to you. Of course, that can be open to interpretation. I'm putting my photos up on Flickr, so if you want to check my photos out each day, you can go here.



On My Christmas List

I've tried to hold on out on posting about Christmas, but I think the week of Thanksgiving it's acceptable for me to start bringing up the most wonderful time of year!

I sent my Christmas list to my Mom a month or two ago and my Christmas list for Sean this year was very short. I told him all I wanted from him was a Kindle, since he's been so generous about sending me home for Christmas, as well as financing my various trips around Europe this year. So...I already know that I got a Kindle (since I'm the one who ordered it and all) But here's some more of my Christmas list!

1. A Pink Cover for my Kindle. I'm a big lover of pink and I think my Kindle would look super cute in this cover. Did I ever mention I also have a pink passport cover?

2. Every year I ask for a subscription to Budget Travel. It's my favorite magazine and I ask for a subscription every.single.year.

3. This Grinch ornament. One day I will have a Grinch tree!

4. Pearl earrings. Once upon a time I had nice ones. Somehow in the process of moving like 8 times in the past 7 years, they got lost and I can only find one.

5. I really, really want a new camera. I'm so afraid mine is going to bite the dust one of these days since I've used it ALOT in the last 3+ years. Unfortunately I don't have over $2,000 to throw down on the Canon 5D Mark II. Anybody out their in blog land want to contribute? I'll even put up a donate button for you... :)

6. An indoor grill. So many recipes I want to try call for grilling and during the fall and winter, it's just not feasible for us to start up the old charcoal grill. Enter this handy indoor grill.

What's on your Christmas list this year?

Question of the Day

Today's question is Christmas or whatever holiday you happen to celebrate based.

Do you have any special traditions this time of year? If so, what are they?

I Love Christmas: Christmas Music

My Top 5 Christmas songs:

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree



It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year- Andy Williams



Silver Bells- Dean Martin



Sleigh Ride- Boston Pops Orchestra



O Holy Night- The Celine Dion version used to be my favorite, but check out Jackie Evancho singing it. It's AMAZING.



What are your favorite Christmas songs?

A little Mele Kalikimaka

A couple of weeks ago I won Annie's giveaway on her blog. The prize was a boxful of goodies from Hawaii.

I received the box in the mail yesterday and I couldn't wait to get it home and see what was inside. It was like my own little Hawaiian Christmas box when I finally opened it.



There was the most adorable postcard and a Hawaiian print floor shammy.



Delicious candy. There were some delicious watermelon candy that I ate in the first day.



My one request was some sand from the beach.



Two kinds of coffee



A very Hawaiian ornament



Two kinds of snack mix



Isn't this the cutest wrapping paper?



Two of my favorites! I'm a huge fan of macadamia nuts.

There were lots of other delicious goodies, but I featured just a few. Thanks again Annie for the amazing package!

Stormy Tuesday

It's a bit stormy here in Louisiana today. When I looked at the radar for back home (Oklahoma) I noticed that it's very cold there and snowing. Hmm...I'm not sure if I'm glad I'm missing out on that or sad that I'm not getting to experience it.

I'm still on the fence about that one.

One thing I do know is that Boomer is NOT going to like the colder weather when we go back to Oklahoma. He's already shivering here, which is precisely why I bought him his fleece hoodie to wear. He's so attached to that thing already. He actually gets mad when you take it off of him. How did I get such a demanding dog?

Speaking of Boomer, this business about him flying is getting a bit ridiculous. I made the reservation for him to be in-cabin last night and then realized that after I did it there's no way they will allow him to fly that way. He's under 20 lbs, which is the weight limit, but not under 9 inches, the height requirement. He's more like 13 inches. Which obviously doesn't allow him to fully stand up and move about his pet carrier like they require them to be able to do. So....we might have to call the grouchy lady back at in/out processing and have him changed again back to being checked luggage. I just want my dog to make it to Italy. Is that too much to ask?

Did I mention yesterday when I got my medical records that the last few pages in them were not mine? See, I went to one specialist one time when I lived in Oklahoma. This was before I got married and when the hospital here requested my medical records from back home, they obviously put my married name on the request. Well, my family doctor did it correctly, the other doctor did not and sent the medical records of a woman with the same name.

So here I am yesterday, reading through my records and I happen upon this, "patient is a 32- year- old white female, husband is considering a vasectomy."

Uh...yeah. That's obviously not me.

I got a good chuckle out of it though. I'm thinking of mailing the lady her records and telling her what happened. Now that should be interesting!

16 Days Until Christmas

Monday News and my running commentary

Just popping in to catch ya'll up with what's going on in.

Nothing terribly exciting though.

I just returned from the hospital on-post which is always an adventure. Nothing is every easy in the military. I've learned that time and time again since I've been an Army wife.

I went to the hospital to get my medical records, I had the appropriate form all filled out and ready to hand in. Then the guy working at the medical records desk informs me I have to have a copy of Sean's orders.

Crap.

A quick check of the car let me know I wasn't going to get lucky with a spare set of orders in there, so I had to drive home and snag a copy, pet Boomer and nab a mozzarella stick and I was out the door on my way to the hospital again.

This time I had everything I needed and had my medical records in hand in no time.

Did I mention I've already been reading them?

Yeah...they are interesting.

Did I also mention I get secret pleasure noticing I'm only three pounds from what I weighed in high school?

Yeah....I'm pretty pumped about that.

Especially when I noticed my hefty weight noted in my chart around the time I had mono. Let's just say I'm glad I'm not at that point anymore.

Oh...and also I have some fantastic news. Sean and I got a car loan! We didn't have to have any parents co-sign on it and they are also allowing us to take the car overseas with no problems. So, needless to say I was very happy about that blessing/miracle.

In moving news, they came today and picked up our unaccompanied baggage. Tomorrow is storage and Wednesday is all our household goods. Then it's off to the Magnolia House to live for the next couple of days until I'm done with work.

Speaking of work, my boss is taking us out for my "last day" dinner this Wednesday. I'm pretty excited, because it means I get to pick where we eat. Last time I got to pick where we ate, our administrative assistant almost poked out bosses' eye out with a chopstick. Fun times, I tell ya.

I got my stiches out yesterday. Something simple turned out to be a long process. I waited two and a half hours to get them out. No, I'm not joking. I sucked it up though and just got through the waiting process. I wasn't going to leave and then have to go back again. It didn't hurt a bit and now I'm sans stitches.

Woo Hoo!

17 Days Until Christmas!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

First things first, if you haven't entered my fabulous giveaway yet then go here and do that. There is still plenty of time to enter!

I forgot to mention last week that the wonderful Pink Chick gave me a blog award last week. Thanks you Pink Chick!

While reading Allison's blog last week I was inspired by her post of warm winter wear, so I ordered these for myself:



Flannel Pj's + Old Navy Prices = Fabulous Find!

Don't worry, I wasn't selfish with my find. I ordered Sean a pair for himself. Obviously not in pink though!

Last night I went over to Sara's house for some cookie baking and decorating. Of course we took pictures, but I have yet to upload them. Let's just say I'm never going to give anyone a run for their money when it comes to cookie decorating. Quite honestly I suck at it.

The cookies turned out amazingly though. Sara let me take a few home and I can't wait to dive into them. The taste-test I did of her Peppermint Chocolate cookies was heavenly!

The movers came today to look over our house so they could decide what was needed when they come pack it up next week. I think Saturday is when Sean and I are going to start organizing stuff and deciding what is going with what shipment. I also have to get everything together that's going back to Oklahoma with me. I've been keeping all the presents I already have bought together so they don't end up getting packed. Yesterday I got Sean's new IPOD in, so sometime before next week I'm going to do my best to charge it and upload some of his songs on it. Now if I can just do this without him realizing it.

Speaking of Christmas, what are your favorite Christmas songs?

Top 5:

1. Rockin Around the Christmas Tree- Brenda Lee

2. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year- Andy Williams

3. Silver Bells- Dean Martin

4. Sleigh Ride- I like the Ronettes or Johnny Mathis version

5. O Holy Night- Celine Dion

22 Days until Christmas!

Morning Express and the Christmas Season

I have to say this weekend turned out pretty well, even though I didn't get to do everything I wanted to. My plan was to go out Sunday afternoon and take some pictures in town, but due to some Vodka and Red Bulls from the night before I was feeling way to icky to do that. I really didn't even have that much, but after yesterday I remembered why I do not drink anymore. I just hate feeling like I've wasted a day because I don't feel well.

Anyway, Sean grilled alot this weekend, chicken and steak plus some really good potatoes and baked beans. I went ahead and made another batch of Chocolate chip cookies since everyone loved them so much and also since I had all the ingredients to make them without going to the store. I also made Green Enchiladas yesterday and got a few pictures of that. I meant to upload them to my computer last night so I could share them with you guys today, but I didn't have time this morning.

My second belly-dancing class is tonight and I'm excited for it. Although I wish it wasn't 2 hours long. I think one hours is sufficient. Plus, I really want to start watching Dancing With the Stars this time around and it conveniently falls on the night and time I do belly-dancing. Ah well, such is life!

Do any of you watch Morning Express with Robin Meade on CNN in the mornings? Sean got me hooked on it and now we both love to watch it. He mainly because he finds Robin Meade attractive and me because I think she's simply hilarious! She does the craziest things sometimes and I can't help but laugh. If you do watch the show did you realize she's turning 40 this year? Before I found that out I honestly thought she was about 30. Not that 40 is old, but I didn't picture her to be 40! She's obviously aging rather well.



Has anyone started their Christmas shopping yet? I want to get started on it now so that when the season is actually here I'll have all of it done and can concentrate on us getting moved. Getting Christmas lists from people is like pulling teeth though! Luckily Sean is easy to buy for. I'm getting him an IPOD for Christmas and a few smaller things. That's the only person that I know exactly what I'm getting for them though. Everyone else is up in the air, although I'm pretty sure I'll get my uncle some scotch again. I'm serious when I say that was probably his favorite gift. I'm not sure my aunt appreciated my gift to him though!