Our first family ski outing!

We headed to PA this weekend to have Christmas with the N's family and to also ski for the first time as a family.  N and his step-mom both ski, but the rest of us have not (ok-I had one lesson 16 years ago!). 

N's brother Jon, his girlfriend, and I took a first time skiers lesson.  We had a great teacher and we all did pretty well.  J even felt so confident that her joined N and Kelli on the slopes.  Courtney and I decided to enjoy a cup of coffee (it was the worst coffee ever, it should be a law that ski slopes serve only the best coffee!) and rest our tired legs.

D spent the day in a program called the Little Rippers.  It was from 9-4 and included a lesson and lunch.  We got to see her out on the bunny slope and she did awesome.  The teacher said she was a little nervous at first but then took right off.  She is looking forward to skiing again this weekend if the weather cooperates.

During our lesson

Getting instructions from Bob

D (pink helmet, white/pink coat and dark pink snow pants)

D headed down the bunny slope

Courtney and I after our lesson

D getting instructions from her teacher

Jon and N

Christmas Recap

We are finally back to our normal schedule!  After two fun weeks of all three of us being home together, D headed to school happily this morning and N zoomed off to work.  I hit the gym for a Zumba class and will spend the rest of the day catching up on all the things I wasn't able to do with everyone home. 

I posted Christmas pictures on Facebook, so I will only post a few here!  We had a fabulous Christmas, my parents, grandma, and brother were able to come to Michigan and celebrate with us.  A good time was had by all.  D enjoyed having everyone here to cater to her every request!

New Year's Eve we spent with friends, D had a blast with their 5 kids and N and I had fun playing games with their parents.  D lasted till midnight!  This was her first year and she wasn't too cranky the next day.

Now we are counting down till our cruise!  We are headed out to sea in March and can't wait to see how D likes the cruising experience.  N and I love it, so hopefully she will too.

N and I are trying to train to do a 5K this Spring and maybe a 10K or 1/2 marathon next year.  Any advice or encouragement is welcome! 

Our First Annual Holiday Party and Wine Exchange

We hosted a holiday party and wine exchange on Saturday night.  It was our first big party in our new house.  We had a great time catching up with friends!  Everyone brought a bottle of wine for a white elephant exchange.  A few bottles of wine went through a few hands as people were looking for their favorite wine or a new wine to try!  We ended up with a Michigan wine and I can't wait to try it!  I was so busy chatting and drinking that I didn't get any pictures, so bummed!  I did take a few of the house before everyone arrived.
We are headed into a busy week; Santa visit, 4 holiday parties, last week of school, volunteering, meetings, etc.  Hopefully all our shopping will be done by this weekend, we just have a few more things to pick up.

The Busy Season has begun....

It has been a crazy couple of weeks and will probably continue to be crazy until January! 
We travelled to PA for Thanksgiving to spend a few days with N's family.  We had a great time doing a Turkey Trot 5K (we walked it!), eating lots of good food, playing at the local park, our semi annual visit to Overly's, and finishing off the visit with a trip to the Carnegie Science Center.  We will head back to PA in January to celebrate Christmas.
Now that Thanksgiving has passed we are busy with all the holiday events.  First up was a holiday festival at D's school.  She had so much time visiting with Santa, playing games, making crafts, and enjoying some pizza and a snow cone.  We absolutely love her school and all the activities they have going on.
We have spent the last several weeks trying to get the house decorated for Christmas.  We put up our old tree in the formal living room and got a new bigger tree for our great room.  We had fun decorating them both as well as the outside of our house.  We will put a few more finishing touches on the house and tree as we get ready to host a holiday party on Saturday.

D's visit to Oz

While I spent Sunday cooking with some Moms from the Mom's Club, N took D to the Henry Ford Museum to see their Wizard of Oz display.  She had a great time.

Weekend Projects

Remember back when we moved into the house I wanted the desktop computer in my bedroom sitting area?  And that my need resulted in a hole in the wall in our entryway?  Well after that fiasco we have decided to move the computer down to D's playroom/office to make room for a couch N brought home from work.  We figured it would be easier for D to be on the computer doing the math and reading sites the school subscribes to.  Plus it will be nice to have our bedroom a completely relaxing place!

D's playroom

 paint color options for the playroom

Our seating area:  Need to fix diplomas and add my Grad school one, plus cover ugly couch!

D also worked on her turkey disguise for school.  We looked at some other turkeys that were on the web and D came up with a princess theme to disguise her turkey.  It came out really cute!  She did the majority of it on her own, I just helped her hot glue the pieces that wouldn't stay on with standard glue.

The picture she made for her art teacher

D also spent some time perfecting her Tinkerbell routine!

We are off to see the Wizard....

Some pictures of D from halloween in case you missed them on facebook...

We had fun celebrating Halloween at school, our church, and in our neighborhood!  Now we are on to looking forward to Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania!