Peace out, 2011

I can't believe it's almost 2012.  I can't believe how fast 2011 has gone.  It was an eventful year with Lee and me in school, the awful tornadoes in April, my awesome job over the summer, and spending time with our families over the holidays.


It has definitely had its ups and downs, and I'm excited about a new year!


There are lots of things I hope to do in 2012:

• Get a JOB!  A teaching job preferably, since that's why I've been in school for the past year and a half!
• Get new bedroom furniture.  The stuff we have now is a mixture of the stuff Lee and I had in college.  It's all pretty nice furniture, but it doesn't really go together at all.  We've been married for almost four years, so I think it's about time we got some grown-up bedroom furniture.
• Run a 5k.  I had planned to do that this year, but time just got away from me.  I'm going to start running again today, so hopefully I can run one soon!
• Make some stuff on my Silhouette Cameo Lee got me for my birthday!  I've had it since October and I [shamefully] haven't even taken it out of the box :(  I can't wait to learn to use it, and hopefully I can play with it before I start back to school in January.

I have a few New Year's Resolutions, but they're the boring ones people make all the time like work out more and stick to a budget, so I'm not really going to talk about those!

Christmas 2011

Christmas was BUSY this year!


We got back from the ski trip around 4:30 on the 22nd, then we unloaded the car and went to pick up the dogs from Lee's mom's house [a little over an hour away].  We went to dinner with his mom and sat around and talked for a little while and got back home around 10:30.  We were EXHAUSTED when we got home so we went straight to bed.  


The next morning we got up and finished up a little bit of shopping.  I got to Target around 8:30 and I was so glad I went pretty early because there was hardly anybody there.  Lee and I ate a late breakfast at Panera [their cinnamon crunch bagels are amazing] then came home and did our Christmas together.  He did really good this year [as usual]!  He got me an Erin Condren planner, a new camera, a zebra hat for skiing, The Help movie, season 2 of Modern Family, and a couple of other little things that I had wanted :)  I got him some new gloves for skiing [I gave him those early so he could use them on the trip], a new keyboard for his computer, a burger press to make stuffed hamburgers, and some other little things.  It was a good Christmas :)

New hat :)

My parents came to town on the 23rd, so after we opened presents we spent the rest of the day cleaning and wrapping presents.  I didn't wrap one single present before we went skiing, so we had A LOT to do!  Lee helped a lot.  When my parents got here we used Lee's new burger press to make hamburgers and just hung our for the rest of the night. 

On Christmas Eve morning we went to Lee's dad's house for brunch and to open presents with them.  

Lee's dad and stepmom with my parents

Me and Lee

Me and my folks

After we got back from there we went to my sister's house to spend the night.  We did presents with my family that night then watched my nephew open his presents on Christmas morning. 

 Riley with his Nana

 In his new truck

 Me and the hubs

 This one cracks me up...Riley wanted his mommy!

 Seesters

We left my sister's house around 11 on Christmas morning and headed over to Lee's grandmother's house to do Christmas with his mom's side of the family.  We had an awesome lunch and opened presents over there.  We stayed there until late that afternoon then went to his mom's house to open presents with her.  I made her a wreath I saw on Pinterest and I was so excited to give it to her!

Lee's roommate from college was in town for Christmas so later that night we got to hang out with him.  We had not seen him since last Christmas and it was SO good to see him!

We went to lunch with Lee's mom the next day then came back home.  I've spent the last few days trying to get this house back in some sort of order!  Hopefully we can start the new year with a clean, organized house!

2011 Ski Trip

We went on our ski trip the week before Christmas this year. Lee's brother's girlfriend graduated from Alabama on the 17th, and we headed to West Virginia on the 18th. We drove most of the way that day and stayed at a hotel about an hour away. We got up early on the 19th and drove the rest of the way up the mountain.

It hasn't been very cold this year, so there wasn't much snow and a lot of the trails weren't open. I think all the blacks were closed, but that obviously didn't bother me, seeing as how last year was the first year I got off the bunny slope :) 

My ski buddies for most of the trip

I think Lee was disappointed that the "good" trails were closed, but he decided since he couldn't ski those he was going to whip me into shape this year. [His words] I guess he did a pretty good job because this year I learned to buckle my boots all by myself AND I skied a blue trail! Two of them actually!

After I skied my first blue...I was so excited

We got two and a half good days of skiing in before it started raining on our last afternoon.

This is how foggy it was that day

We went night skiing our second night and that was a lot of fun! I didn't get any pictures of that, though :(

Lee said this was the first year he had actually had fun skiing with me. That sounds mean when I type it out, but he just meant that every other year when he's skied with me he had to stay on the greens and go really slow. [I did ski with his parents and stepbrothers on those trips though, so he could ski the "fun stuff" with his brother!] This year he still had to go pretty slow, he just got to go pretty slow on some blue trails too :) I can't wait to go again!

I'm back...for real this time...

Well...

I keep saying I have a blog so I can have memories of everything that's going on in my life, but then everything that's going on keeps me so busy I don't make time to blog about it.

That's going to change.

Now.

I got a new camera for Christmas so hopefully that will encourage me to take more pictures. [Not surprisingly] I had been bad about that too. Now I just have to learn how to use it :)

Here's a picture taken with the new camera on Christmas Day: