Two Weeks of Bliss

As most of you know, Tony's company shuts down from Christmas Eve 'til the day after New Year's Day. Seeing as how Tony has been putting in 50+ hour weeks, it was a true blessing. Here is a little of what we did during two weeks of no school or work.

Christmas in Wisconsin: We traveled to Wisconsin for a little quality time with the Dieringers. We got to spend some time with Beth, Laura and Rory at the dog park in Grafton. Man alive that dog has a lot of energy and managed to make a new friend. Christmas Eve was carried on with Mom, Dad, Naomi, Zach, Laura, Tony and I with the service at church seeing some old friends followed with a movie and appetizers. Needless to say, nothing healthy was eaten that night.

           
The following day the whole family, some on Skype, packed into the not-so-tight-anymore newly finished basement for some quality Christmas time together. It began with the Christmas story read by Dad, followed by the grandkids opening presents and then the adults. I absolutely loved the sewing supplies I received and they have been put to good use! The day ended with pure unadulterated hanging out, and don't forget the number of cribbage games played during our stay there.

Playing the game that Caden got from Grandma and Grandpa

Decorating the bedroom: We headed out the day after Christmas due to a couple projects that had been brewing in my head in anticipation of five weeks off. During finals week it was so difficult to focus on studying due to all the new ideas for decorating our apartment I had floating in my head. (Curse you Pinterest!) We had already rearranged the living room a week or two earlier on a whim to a much more appealing look, however, the bedroom was in need of some help. Here are the results the we came up with.

new living room arrangement

bedroom decorations

cloth stapled to canvas frames

old lamps

The new side tables
(used the peach crates
from our wedding)

complete result

We found the two lamps at a consignment store in town. They were traditionally painted green with some gold trim and had the green plaid lampshades shown. Tony spray painted the body black and the new lampshades were my first official sewing project and I used some of the cloth from our wedding. So exciting!!!

Our first Christmas: Since we were in Wisconsin for Christmas Day we decided to celebrate Christmas together a couple days later. We began with making pancakes, followed by opening presents and finished the day with a movie.

I got Tony a messenger bag that he can take to work
instead of his MSOE backpack and a cable
to connect his hard drive to his computer.

Tony got me some running tights, a Calvin and
Hobbes comic book, logic puzzles and
 glow-in-the-dark stars for our bedroom ceiling.
No one said I had to grow up completely once married :)

New Year's Eve: Tony's parents and sister finally had the chance to take the 6 hour drive across Illinois and Indiana to bring in the new year in Iowa with us. We managed to lose our camera in Wisconsin (don't worry, it was returned after being found hanging on the Christmas tree) so there are no pictures. Here's a little of what we did:

                              - ate at Bandana's (a really good BBQ restaurant in town)

                              - watched Les Miserables ("worth every penny") and some bowl games

                              - tried to find the hole in the air mattress

                              - played a few friendly games of dominoes, taboo and Ticket to Ride

Being in the Central Time Zone, they had the fortunate ability to watch the ball drop at 11pm to go to bed early. Overall, it was a fun couple days of hanging out.

Seth and Ashia's Wedding: We ended our two weeks of being together 24/7 by spending a night in LaCrosse for our friend's wedding. We went up a day early to spend sometime together. This included sledding at the golf course below Grandad's Bluff with the saucers we purchased earlier that day. It was incredible fun, however, it ended with a decimated left butt cheek, a chipped tooth and a very sore shoulder. From there, we walked through downtown and I took Tony to the places I remembered from visiting Beth while she went there for college. We spent the night hanging out with two friends from MSOE that also came up a night early. It was fun reminiscing with them as it had been a while. The following day we had the privilege of watching Seth, a guy Tony got to know pretty well his freshman year, marry Ashia, a lovely woman he met in Madison. It was a beautiful ceremony that I have no pictures of due to the lost camera, and a wonderful time seeing everyone again.

Our camera was waiting for us at home!!!

The nice thing about driving up from Iowa was the opportunity to follow the Mississippi River for about 70 miles and finding the pretty and hilly part of Iowa. It does exist! Well, we arrived back home in time to watch the Packers beat the Vikings! GO PACK GO!