Weekend Wrap Up

Our last weekend of 2011 ended up being quite eventful:

• I had the day off on Friday so I picked up the house in the morning and then ran a bunch of errands in the afternoon.  I realized that I really like running errands during the middle of a work day because there are not as many people to deal with, check-out lanes are shorter and it is just a more pleasant experience over all.  
• Friday night we went to Newton for a gender reveal party at Brandon's sister's house.  I had never been to a party like this before but it was pretty fun.  They had sonogram a few weeks ago and they told the tech to write down the gender and put it in an envelope.  Then, his sister took the envelope to a baker and told them to open it and to make the inside of the cake either pink or blue, depending on what the tech had written down and then frost it in white.  Once all of the party guests arrived, they cut open the cake to reveal what whether or not they were having a girl or a boy.  And, this is what they saw:
  
  
  
  
  Needless to say, we'll have a new niece sometime in late March or early April and we definitely know how to be an aunt and uncle to little girls!
• On Saturday, Brandon and his dad decided to mount the TV we got for Christmas.  However, it was not just any TV mounting project.  It required removing mirrors and a built-in book case, cutting out sheet rock, poking holes in the wall and fishing cables in and out, but it turned out perfect!  Here is a little "action shot":
  
  
  

• After a lot of work on Saturday, we headed out to dinner with Brandon's parents.  We tried a new restaurant on our side of town and it was delicious!  After dinner, we headed to a friend's house about 30 minutes away.  We joked that we had not gone "out" for New Years Eve in so long and then the time we do we have to drive 30 minutes!  We had  fun and low key evening playing Farkle and hanging out and we were home by 11:00.  We actually rang in the new year as we were on the verge of falling asleep.  Ha!  This is a sure sign that we are getting old!!
• On Sunday we headed up to my grandpa's house for my dad's family's Christmas celebration.  We ate a big lunch and played a couple of new games - Left Center Right and then a name game that my aunt introduced us to.  All 28 of us were able to play both games and we had a really fun time!  It isn't often we all get together so it is always nice to catch up with my cousins and aunts and uncles.
• Monday, we finally got to sleep in (we have not been able to do much of that during our holiday weekends)!!  Once we got up and around we got busy doing chores around the house.  Brandon finished up mudding the wall and mounting the TV while I cleaned out the fridge.  My sister-in-law's fridge was soooo clean when we were at her house on Friday that I got inspired to give mine a good scrub down.  After I got done with the fridge, I went to lunch with a friend and we did a little house project shopping.  After I got home, Brandon and I took down our Christmas decorations, cleaned up the house, did laundry and he started calking our trim to prepare it to be painted (I can't wait to have this project completed and it has barely started...we've got a LONG way to go!).
• I ended my night with "The Bachelor" and a little blogging while Brandon watched football (it is Bowl season, after all).  It's hard to accept that Christmas is over and we are in our third day of 2012.  I guess we should start getting used to the routine again.