fuzzykitty

Five years ago today I married Darrell! These happy years have flown by.  Tonight we are going to have a nice meal together and then enjoy our long weekend.

Merry Christmas!  Special thanks to Nick for making my Christmas cards cool this year by adding some flair to the above photo!

This week lucky Darrell got to fly with Santa which impressed all of the kids and adults at the Christmas party potluck. Who knew Santa would ever arrive in a Russian helicopter?!

Yesterday we went to St. Augustine to try the famous shrimp at O’Steen’s Restaurant and so that I could attend a cookie exchange held for the women and wives of my husband’s employer. The shrimp was good and the wait wasn’t bad. Darrell also enjoyed the hush puppies, chicken dumplings and green beans!

This was my first cookie exchange. I brought my favorite ribbon cookies and did my best to fit in. I still felt out of place because I had nothing in common with these women; they were older, all had really young or old kids about to graduate, beautiful jewelry, nice cars and houses. I doubt that they work… It’s funny because I can’t even get paid on time! They seemed to all be used to their husbands leaving for long periods of time because they must have been married while in the military and already on this sort of schedule or something. Anyway, my cookies didn’t win any prizes and actually I think that mine were the least liked because hardly anyone took any. Oh well, I liked them.

After the cookie exchange Darrell and I set out on our search for Guitar Hero for the Wii. We started at Costco first because I had seen it advertised on their site but they were out. We also braved Best Buy and left empty handed. I finally bought it online once we got home. It should arrive around the same time our new TV is set to get here!

Darrell found out that he will be leaving again in the beginning of January but should be back in plenty of time to close on our new house and move. It will be so nice to have our own space and my beautiful kitchen. We are working with a nice local interior re-designer to help us make this new place really special and work with our existing furniture. Our first meeting with her went well and was to pick out paint colors. She had the colors mixed and brought them to me the other day so I could paint samples on poster board and post them on our current walls to make sure we could live with the colors. We picked seven colors in all but might whittle down to five. I am going to start painting and tacking the samples up tomorrow since we spent the day running around and shopping today.

We had a nice relaxing vacation in Mexico earlier this month where we sat on the beach and snorkeled in Akumel & Xcaret.

When we got back we had a had an excellent dinner with Darrell’s former boss Ron and went to a fancy work awards banquet where we won a basket of food.

I am not sure of the details but yesterday Darrell was helping his co-workers install an engine into a helicopter and somehow it slid in quicker than he had expected while his finger was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Darrell pinched his middle finger between something and the engine for what felt like forever until four guys were able to lift the engine and free his finger. He then went into shock and was taken to the doctor. Thankfully the doctor said that his finger was not broken and that he did not need stitches but he does need to wear a splint so that he does not bend it and needs to be careful and not get it wet. It could have been much worse and he is very lucky!

On another note, I have only been to the gym once or twice this month and my energy level is superlow. It doesn’t help that I am going to a cookie exchange this weekend but there is no way I could turn down a chance to bake!

Ahhh… We are finally on vacation.  Actually today we have to  run around to several appointments and then we can leave for Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a relaxing time with no complaints. I am *so* looking forward to this!

When I woke up this morning Google Alerts had sent me a message that contained my Mom’s name.  Twenty-five years ago my mom was part of the chili cook off circuit and the article briefly mentions this.  Anyway, it was neat to see her name in print.

I had a great time in Seattle and just missed the snow!

When I got back into town I had a lot to do. I had to visit the salon to get ready for our upcoming vacation, attend boot camp class and surprise Darrell by getting his car waxed and detailed! Busy times!

I finally picked Darrell up at the airport yesterday. I am so happy that he is home!