Christmas in Waseca

For Christmas my parents gave Jon and I both the Ninetendo Wii and a Wii Fit. YEAH!!! When Jon and i got to Waseca, Betty & Megan were out shopping, Christopher was snowboarding, and Joel was out for a walk with the dogs, so it gave us perfect time to set up the Wii in the living room. Fun, fun.

On Friday night Courtney & Charlie were over as well as Grandma & Grandpa Rieck, so it gave the whole family a chance to try out the Wii and set up their Mii people. Grandma was not too sure at first of playing this video game, but of course her first time up bowling she throws a strike. Nice work. After doing Wii for awhile, we ended up playing some more traditional board games until we all got tired and had to go to bed. Saturday was another relaxing day hanging out and playing Wii on and off. Early Saturday evening Jon, Joel, Christopher, Betty, and I all went to the movie "The curious case of Benjamin Button", which was an interesting and long movie. Both before the movie and after, Christopher had this need to stop for Irish Car bombs....so after the movie we made a quick stop at the bar for a shot & a beer. We did not stay too long as he was heading over to Mankato to a party later that night and of course not good to drink & drive. Once we got back to the house, Jon, Joel, Betty, & I all watched another movie...this time it was more of a fun movie, Mama Mia. Sunday at the Weber Zoo the girls spent time in the kitchen making soup, bread, spritz cookies, and those peanut butter/cracker candies while the boyz watched some football. After we were done in the kitchen Betty spent some time showing me how to Knit before Jon, Bailey, and I headed back home to Bloomington. I think I have picked knitting up pretty quickly. I want to make a hat and eventually a shawl, but for now Betty recommended I start with something easy like a scarf.

Christmas in Appleton

This year our plans for Christmas were to spend Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day in Appleton with my parents and then on Friday the 26th to head to Waseca to spend the Christmas weekend with Jon's family.

It has been a few years since Jon and I have been in Appleton on Christmas eve. The tradition is to spend Christmas eve with my Mom's side of the family and then Christmas Day with my Dad's side of the family. Unfortunately this year my dad's family got together on the weekend prior to Christmas to celebrate so Christmas day was spent just hanging at home with my parents.
Since both my mom's parents have passed away, the family now rotates who hosts the different holidays. This year Pam & Greg hosted Christmas eve, which means just a quick walk next door from my parents house. I love Christmas eve with my mom's side as we get all dressed up, go to the Christmas eve mass at my parents Catholic church, the have a wonderful dinner, family pictures, present exchange, and then game night. I always have so much fun with my family and of course there were a few times where we were all laughing until we were crying.

Christmas spirit

In my office there really is not any Christmas decorations, except for a large Christmas tree up in the reception area on the 24th floor. One team in my department brought in some lights and a few bulbs and decorated the plant that was sitting in there area. So I too tried to bring some Christmas spirit to my team at work by bringing in some Christmas lights and decorated the tree in our area. This tree normally sits at the end of our area in this corner where there is all windows. I am not sure what kind of tree it was, but it did not fit sitting on the floor within my team's area. So instead I propped it up on a file cabinet in one of the empty cubes. Then it was not only seen by my team, but you could see it around the whole department.

Also, the week before Christmas our company received an unexpected gift....we got a free afternoon off because the power went out in our building. On this day, I attempted to get to work early so I arrived about 8:00 (versus 8:30) as I came up to the elevator bank there was a maintenance man checking out one of the elevators, but I did not think anything about it, since they are working on them quite frequently. I got into the elevator with maybe 4 other people, so of course we had a few stops on the way up. Well when we got to the 21st floor the doors opened and 2 guys got off and then the door started to close and Bamb! All the lights went out in the elevator and I could see the lights on the floor went out as the door was closing. YIKES!!! Well the emergency lights came on and I guess since the elevator doors had not fully closed yet, they popped back open but only part way. I looked at the lady next to me and said I am getting out of here and slide through the 2 foot opening of the elevator doors. Now we were on the 21st floor and at least there was a window at the end of the hallway so we had a little bit of light to help find our way to the stairwell. There was also a few lights on in the stairwell, so I walked the last 2 flights up to the 23rd floor. But, of course once up to my office there was not much to do since we had to shut down all servers and then our phones.
All morning we sat around the office in case the power was restored. By 12:00 is was still not back up yet, so we were able to leave for the afternoon. I guess what happened was the transformer box to the building blew. There were 8 transformers and it took them all day to get everything back up and running. Also, since we are on the top 2 floors, we received power last since they start with the 1st floor and work their way back up floor by floor.
The best past was that I was able to get the last 2 Christmas gifts i needed to buy and then spent the afternoon wrapping all the remaining presents. Now I was totally ready for Christmas! I love FREE days!

Our baby

Here is another typical Sunday with Jon watching football downstairs and our baby Bailey taking a nap on his lap.

Snow Dog....

Here are some cute pictures of Bailey & her Christmas sweater outside playing in the snow.

2 Parties - 1 Night

I love the holiday season....a time for lights, decorations, treats, and parties. I especially like Christmas parties because I can get all dressed up and actually have some place to go. Well, this holiday season Jon and I had 2 big parties to go to....the only problem.....they were both on the same night.

Party #1 - The Buum/Connolly wedding
James & Quinn have been dating on and off for like 10 years and were finally getting married. The wedding was held at the St. Paul Union Depot, which was an extremely beautiful setting for a Christmas wedding. It was nicely decorated with Christmas trees & lights, as well as tulle & lights hanging from the ceiling. Since it was somewhat dark inside, my pictures from a far did not turn out so well, which was ll the ceremony pictures. However, the reception pictures turned out much better.
There was quite a crew of people there from Waseca, so there was lots of people to talk to & have fun with. Jon and I stuck around the wedding until about 10:15.....too much later and I would have been having too much fun and not wanted to leave.

Then we headed over to Minneapolis to.....

Party#2 - Collins Holiday party
By the time we got to the Collins party it was just before 11:00 and there was still a good crew of people hanging around. The Collins party was at the Calhoun Beach Club and also was nicely decorated for the Holidays. I was able to get around and say "hi" to a lot of people but then something bad happened.....the bar went dry. Okay, not too big of a deal because everyone headed down to the bar that was in the building for some continuation of the fun. I was glad that we were able to make both events in one night. :)

Louie had a problem....

On Tuesday night on my way home from work, I noticed that my car did not seem to be getting warm. Meaning...by the time I got home, it still did not feel like there was much heat coming from the vents. This is not good when you live in a cold weather city/state.

For the last week or so my low fluid light had been coming on sporadically, however, Jon had just topped off my anti-freeze fluid. I guess the hose that carrys the fluid through the engine had a small leak in it, so he had told me to watch this. Anyway, once I told him I did not think there was much heat coming out, he went to the garage to investigate. His findings were that the leak had now turned into a small hole and anytime he put fluid into the reservoir, the pressure of the fluid would just push most of it out that small hole and on to the garage floor. But, he thought this was something he could fix himself.

He ordered a new hose from the local Chevy dealership since this is a unique part and then on Thursday night, my honey fixed my car up for me again. What a great husband I have. He is sooooooo handy. It did take a little work to get the old hose out since most of it was all rusted, but once he got the old one out. The new one went in much easier.

Now I have heat again! I am glad too because it means that Louie the Lumina is still kicking. :)

Cookies!!!

In the spirit of giving and just because I love to bake....I volunteered to bake 4-6 dozen cookies for our Angel tree project at church. Around the holidays our church gives small gifts and cookies to under privileged children. In addition to this Jon's work just happened to be having a pot luck luncheon on the same day I needed to bring my cookies to church so he volunteered to bring 3 dozen cookies for the pot luck, which his lovely wife was going to bake for him. :)

SO I ended up baking a double batch of both Chocolate Mint Snow Top Cookies & Peanut Butter Blossoms. I started making cookies when I got home around 5:30 and I think I finished around 10:30pm. Yikes! Around 9:00 or so Jon decided to help me with the process as well. So in the end it was a joint effort. We had a ton of cookies....there was even some left over, so I brought some to work as well. Its hard to tell in the picture...but the mint ones are stacked 2 high.

Oh Christmas Tree.....Oh Christmas Tree.....

Here is our 2008 Christmas tree. This year we moved the futon into the basement, which was in front of the window....so we could put the tree in the front window. I love how it looks both from the inside and outside. TaDa!

And I almost forgot our second artificial tree that is down in the basement. This tree we received from our neighbor accross the street after last Christmas. She is older and does not want to put up her tree anymore, so she asked if we wanted it before she threw it away. Along with the tree she had all sorts of silver, red and a few gold ornaments. I thought they looked perfect! The tree is pretty, however, it is a little thin near the bottom half, since she either lost or threw out some of the branches and we were missing like 10! I mixed them around and skipped some of the branch holes to fill it in, but I think it turned out pretty good. Also, I am sure you can see that the wall in the basement is done, but we still don't have a ceiling or carpet in yet. At least the presents make it look nice. :)

A christmas tree....

On Saturday Jon and I went out with Holly, Jason, and Grandpa (Jason's dad) to cut down 2 Christmas trees. One for Holly & Jay and one for Grandma & Grandpa. I did not bring any type of outdoor wear down to Sun Prairie with me, so Holly helped me find layers to wear including a hat, mittens, and a scarf. There is a tree farm that is like 20 minutes north of there house and it was well worth the little drive it took to get there.

This tree farm definitely got into the spirit of Christmas....they had a horse drawn sleigh for people to ride out or in from the woods, a Santa and Santa's workshop in one barn, in another barn/shed they had a craft sale as well as hot cider & hot chocolate, and then in the end part of that shed where they were shaking and bagging the trees there were some ponies. Jon and I now have 2 artificial trees so we had no need to go out to cut our own tree, so I had so much fun helping out Holly & Jason.

Sometimes I really feel like a kid again....being all bundled up and trekking through the woods, I had a blast. I made me want to run around jumping in the snow. I even found this neat tree that was hanging over the path that looked perfect for climbing...so that is what I did. Holly even joined me up in the tree. Grandpa kept laughing at us running in the snow & climbing in the tree saying "look at those monkeys....monkey see & monkey do."

Saturday night we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Badger basketball game. We met Rock there and then also Grandma & Grandpa Grundahl joined us for dinner as well.

Murder Mystery - Class of 1985 Reunion

On Friday night our friend Carrie organized a Murder Mystery Party at Matt & Kayla's house. The theme of the party was "Class of 1985 High School Reunion". Prior to that night Carrie had sent everyone details on their characters so they would know how to dress & act upon arriving to the party. My characters name was Molly Ringworm, who was the Drama Queen in HS, but has since done well for herself in Hollywood landing a leading role on the soap opera The Brash & The Brutal. She has recently won a daytime Emmy for her role and I was told to make sure I brought my Emmy with me. Jon's character was B.A. Barricade, who was the punk in HS, with tattoos, colored hair, and an overall bad attitude and now was a personal body guard for the class president, who was now a presidential hopeful.

Jon and I took a half day on Friday so we could make it down to Sun Prairie with plenty of time to get ready. On a side note...Holly was the pom pom captain and Jason was the Math geek. :)

When we arrived at the party we were given an envelope that had some details on things you had to do or say prior to the murder happening as well as some cash that could be used later in the game for bribery. It took only but a minute to get into character, but boy was it fun. Everyone did so well at their parts and also everyone dressed their parts as well. After about 45 minutes the lights went out, I screamed, and then when they came back on someone was murdered. Yikes!






Now we got another envelope with additional details inside as to how you were supposed to act or things to do now that the murder happened. My details said - You are the murderer....tell no one. If anyone asks throw suspicion off yourself and onto others. From this point on, I just made sure to kept my Emmy where everyone could see it...I even added a little ketchup on the tip just in case someone was keen enough to see it. :) Turns out there was a few other story lines going on at the same time so it really did take everyone's suspicion off of me. After about another 45 minutes Carrie (the Hall Monitor/Police Officer) asked everyone to fill out a card stating who they thought the murderer was. I think only 2 people guessed me.
With the right group of people, I would highly recommend having a murder mystery party. here is the link to where you can buy the party details. http://www.nightofmystery.com/