It's The Holiday Season. . .

Well, not really anymore. Especially since we are in January and all remnants of Christmas and the New Year have been taken down. This is just my typical procrastination. GO ME!!

Some really cool and fun things happened to us, so of course I must share with you all the happenings of our exciting life. Don’t hold your breath. . . we are anything but exciting!!

So for Christmas I wanted to get Ryan some really cool presents. That is my goal every year with all the people that I shop for; however, by Christmas morning I get major buyers remorse and think, "Why did I get them that? What was I thinking?" One of the presents I got Ryan was great!! I think it was more fun for me than for him. Here is how the conversation went:

Picture two days before Christmas . . . me, coming home from some great shopping and errand running, and Ryan, coming home from a long day of work, we are heading out to dinner.

Heather: Ryan, you need to open one of your presents early . . . or it will die.

Ryan: (eyes big at this point) What did you get? (Said more angry than excited)

Heather: I got you a puppy!! (Said with excitement, a huge smile, and of course batting of the eyelashes!)

Ryan: WHAT??!! (Humor completely gone from his face . . . looking quite menacing at this point)

Heather: I got you a puppy and if you don’t open it and wait until Christmas morning it will die. (He looks like he is ready to faint by this point and I decide to give the poor guy a break.)

I then explain to him that I named it puppy but he can name it whatever he wants. . . (Color starts to come back into his face but he still looks at me with daggers). I lead him towards the fish tank where I have taped a bunch of wrapping paper for him to “open” his present. (He is starting to look less like he is going to kill me and more like he is going to laugh). I then point out the little crab that I had named puppy. By this point he is happy. I then explain that I got him a tattoo, lipstick and a puppy for Christmas;all names of the new wildlife in our tank.
A small idea of what our new "Puppy" looks like. Scary, right?? It freaks me out.

I wonder if he has completely healed from the experience. At least I got a lot of enjoyment from that!! That’s what makes it all worthwhile, right?

So in a serious tone . . . I got Ryan a really cool hockey puck case, thanks to my eBay seller. He has all these hockey pucks from NHL games and when he played in a league. He is so good he would receive the game puck on occasion.Ryan also got a Nintendo Wii, compliments of Terry and Vicky!! Thank you Jerky and Annelise for getting the bug in us! It has been fun!! I have been meaning to take pictures of our jam sessions . . . totally dropped the ball on it. So Brian you need to come back over just so I can take a picture of you holding the game controller with Ryan. We can reenact that fun night for camera and blog purposes!

It was fun opening up the presents on Christmas morning. We opened them with Brandon, Tawny, their two kids, Aaron, Terry, and Vicky. There was a big void though because our Utah family was not there!! (Sniffle and sob) Next year Michelle!!


Brandon and Tawny did not know that we had asked for a Nintendo Wii. So Ryan, being the tease that he is, had an idea of what present it was so he waited to open it until the very end. Poor Brandon and Tawny; it was really confusing to them and their kids. They saw us opening games and controllers (we got a lot of fun controllers, Mario Galaxy, Spiderman 3, Dance Dance Revolution, and Guitar Hero 3) but were baffled as to how we were going to use these games; especially since the Wii is not the easiest to come by. So that was fun!

Since I don't have any pictures of us playing. . . yet! Here are some pictures, use your imagination and I am sure you can see us playing this!

For New Years Eve we went out to a really yummy dinner with Terry and Vicky. We had prime rib at the Summit House. SO GOOD!!! Terry, Aaron, and Ryan each gave me their bones to take home to Lacy. She was such a happy dog!! We had to fence her in the kitchen. She has a tendency to be right at our feet with her bones. Ryan didn’t want it to get the floors dirty. So she was funny to watch. She would get so excited and start gnawing on that bone . . . then she would realize that we aren’t focusing our attention on her, and also that she in fact was locked in that small area, so she would whine. Then she would remember her bone and go back to devouring it. I think I found more humor in her little idiosyncrasies than Ryan did.

As a random note . . . I always feel so conflicted with items like this. I was very strict about feeding Lacy table food in the beginning. Then with the health scare of so many dogs near to death with the pet food recall I became more lenient and gave into her sad puppy eyes. So it is a tough spot. I feel bad not letting her eat the yummy food, but I feel ten times worse when I give in and she gets a bad reaction to the table food I fed her!! I am sure all you Mom’s out there can relate to that!