no more naked tree!

i have to say i'm very excited about having a home of my (our) own for christmas 2010. my parent's moved from my childhood home about four years ago, and moved in with my grandfather to take care of him as lived out the remainder of his amazing life...so we spent a few christmases (is that the right word? who knows) at his home. this past year we spent the holiday at my older sister's condo and it was so fun! it made me especially excited to have a home to hang stockings for brian, lily and me and a tree to decorate!

 

all photos from martha stewart. duh. who does christmas better than martha?

my only reservation? the fact that between brian and i, we only have about 10 ornaments (and 9 of them are mine...)  

one night in january i was walking down broadway, heading home from picking up dog food or something like that, and i spied a sign in one of my favorite home decor stores (that is historically too expensive for my paycheck...) that said "christmas decor 50% off" omg sign me up!!

an hour later i walked out with a bag stuffed with some gorgeous ornaments. will our tree be overwhelmingly dressed? no, but at least it won't be naked!!

 

red for indiana university

purple for james madison university

 

 the lot. please don't judge my "backdrop" i am not a professional

 what is christmas without kissing penguins?? 

hopefully i remember to make their scarves in the next 10 months

here's to a beautiful holiday, even though its a long way away!!

happy lovers day!

 

happy valentine's day to all you lovers out there! my sweetie and i will be spending our last valentine's day as un-married youngsters cooking at home and watching big love. it may sound boring but before the future mister  took the job he has now he worked at a big-four accounting firm and i learned quickly that this time of year is truly busy season-so instead of wasting time getting dressed up and sitting at a generic restaurant we decided to cook with one another and enjoy being at home. 

this year's menu? king crab legs from dirk's, some delicious cheddar bay biscuits (i am making them, no need for red slobster) and our last bottle of wine from our trip to napa in 2007. i am sad that this is our final bottle, but now this is giving us an excuse to go back and stock up!

p.s. i realized i have about 8 different projects to post, so hopefully that'll happen since i totally skipped last week's post :( thanks in advance for your forgiveness!!

better late than never

when i was back on the east coast this winter for christmas i had the wonderful, delightful pleasure of watching my baby sister graduate from virginia tech!

 

hard to tell but there she is! yay katherine!

they were calling for some snow before graduation started, but we all (mom, dad, me, heather, katherine, auntie and uncle, and other auntie) figured, "hey, how bad can it get?" well, the short answer is bad bad bad bad bad.

 

arf arf. mom what is this stuff??

 

we got back to katherine's townhouse and did the world's fastest move out. filled three cars in 30 minutes. wouldn't you know that between 30 minutes to pack the car, 15 minutes to toast katherine with milk and papa john's (num num) and a few hugs more than an inch of snow fell? let me tell you people, virginia cannot handle the snow like chicago, and it was a m-e-s-s. heather and i had to drive a key 2 miles. TWO MILES (that is major because i don't ever use capital letters) and it took well over an hour. after we did that it took us another hour to get to the highway. the highway is a six mile stretch that leads to the interstate. would you believe it if i said that it took us six.hours. to get to the interstate? in those six hours we: 

got in a snowball fight roadside

got stuck in multiple snow banks-including me pushing heather's civic (wellington? is that the car's name?) out of the snow

got hit by a car that slid down the hill into us

slept

contemplated the fact that we would inevitably starve to death

laughed

sang (mostly me-heather loves it when i sing)

contemplated where we (by we i mean me) would use the bathroom

 

holy snow batman!

 

so we get to the interstate. omg. the interstate is closed! fml! wtf! fmmfl! (sorry mom!) so what to do, what to do...well duh i will dig out a path and we will go the wrong way on the entrance ramp and head back to where we came from to our very warm and cozy hotel (thanks hawthorne suites!) and camped out for the next two days. 

sitting in this snow for 8 hours will do this to ya...

22" in total fell over the virginia/maryland area in less than 12 hours. that is a lot of snow in a short amount of time no matter where it falls, but in an area that is ill-suited to handle even 2" of snow, this was crippling. hence, we spent two days in the hotel and lived off of dorito's and diet dr. pepper (not a lot available in the sundries store of a limited service hotel). oh, and? my cell phone died and my charger was plugged into the wall in my office 1,000 miles away. perfect!

oh yeah, that's healthy.

the best part of this? spending 2 solid days of quality time with my lovely older sister and my gorgeous little puppy. there was no escaping each other. the tv had limited channels, and neither of us had the foresight to bring our laptops (oy!) lots of sisterly bonding.

 

heather + lily + hotel = lovely weekend

oh, and? lots of time for pictures!

aww best buy employees/college students are so cute

 

gangsta pup

the other best part of this, was, of course, how incredibly breathtaking the sky is after the downpour of flakes, when the storm has cleared and the sun is setting.

 

the worst part? shoveling heather's spot out when we got to her condo. hard work, but we are strong, able bodied women, and we got through the 2' (yes, that is 2 FEET) of snow in about 20 minutes. et voila!

 

 that shoveled portion? that is just the sidewalk.

  

one exhausted caro.

p.s.

 

not the smartest driver...

good luck this weekend virginia! i hear it's supposed to be even worse this time!!