Gingerbread House Contest Result

How's this for overdue?? I posted the result on Facebook right after the contest, but it has come to my attention that not everyone saw it! So this is for Brielle :) The contest winner was House A, made by Janae! That's me!! lol, so yes, I got to open the first present on Christmas morning :) Oh and Aaron's gingerbread house fell apart almost immediately after he took the picture! So it's a good thing he got the picture in time! He might have added more but didn't get the chance. It was a close contest! Thanks for voting you guys, it was really fun and will probably be an annual tradition :)

I plan to get back to blogging, so prepare for an onslaught of entries as I catch up on events of 2011...

Gingerbread House Contest!

Each contestant had access to 13.5 graham crackers, one bag of Brach's Holiday Mix candy, half a bag of Brach's Crimp Ribbon candy, 8.1 ounces of whipped chocolate frosting, 8.1 ounces of whipped vanilla frosting, a working surface of their choice (cookie tray and cutting board were chosen), a spoon, a knife, paper towels, and of course, their own ingenuity (unfortunately that last resource seriously tipped the scales, but what can you do??). There was no limit on time or smack talk.

The contestants were responsible for taking their own pictures at the end and choosing only two to post for judging. Gingerbread houses will be referred to as House A and House B, assigned by the flip of a coin.

YOU will be the judge of the contest! The poll is posted on the right side of this blog...review the pictures and choose carefully! The winner gets to open the first gift on Christmas morning! Woohoo! Looking forward to the final result! The poll will close at 10pm on Christmas Eve (because that's when we're going to bed! lol). Thanks for participating!! Happy judging!



HOUSE A:




HOUSE B:





Don't forget to vote in the poll! It's in the top right corner of the page :)

Merry Christmas!

Rockin Around the Christmas Tree Video!

Yay for time lapse videos!! Okay...disclaimers: It's not the final perfect product, but I don't have the software to make it as good as I want it right now. Maybe if I save my pennies... :) The end is sketchy music-wise, but I think you the get idea of what I was going for at least. Anyway, here's what it is for now. Enjoy! (PS - we have the flu, so don't judge our appearance too much if you can help it! lol)

Christmas in Colorado!

So because of my work schedule I have to stay here for Christmas. After much deliberation, Aaron finally decided to stay here with me, so we'll be spending Christmas together in Colorado. The downside is we'll miss out on visiting our family in Wisconsin, which is a huge bum

Saving...

mer and I've already had my cry about that. The upside is that Aaron and I will get to spend our first Christmas together at home with just the two of us and our dogs!! I've become a lot more excited about that over the last couple of weeks. We'll be able to spend Christmas Eve with my extended family down in Parker (just an hour away), and then we'll wake up on Christmas morning in our apartment. I'm excited to be able to form some of our own traditions and just enjoy each other and our dogs on Christmas morning. A couple of things we're doing this year (that we hope are the start of lasting traditions) are... giving each other pajamas as gifts to open on Christmas Eve, having a gingerbread house making contest and making lots of kiss cookies (our favorite!).



Sugar and Sampson are getting excited about the tree and the stockings and it will be fun for them to have their first Christmas morning! They usually have to stay in their crates so they don't get in the way, and I'm excited to let them be part of the gift-opening part of Christmas! We have a couple of gifts under the tree for them as well as stockings filled with rawhides! :)


Speaking of which, this is my first year filling a stocking for someone! It's actually really fun! I probably went a little overboard with my items, but hopefully Aaron enjoys his stocking! I've been practicing filling it when he's not home to make sure everything fits, lol. I'm pretty excited! We finally have all of our presents under the tree and I'm getting excited for Christmas to come! Nothing brings out the 6 year old in me quite like seeing my name on a gift!! :)


I also have to add that I recently purchased two nativity sets! We found one at Big Lots and it was marked down to only 14.95 and I loved it, so we decided to go ahead and get it. I think the scriptures carved into each piece makes it really special. I really love it and hope it will be a treasure for many years.

So then I'm walking around King Soopers a couple of days ago...and I see another nativity set! It was beautiful and came with the animals and the stable and everything! It was the very last one that they had and it was on clearance for...14.95!! I knew I couldn't justify getting yet another nativity set to Aaron, even at that price, so I bought it with my own spending money and I think that just makes me love it even more! I still can't believe it was so inexpensive! It looks like a hand crafted set worth a couple hundred dollars to me. I love it!

I can hardly believe my luck, two nativity sets that I LOVE! :) And I've always wanted a Poinsettia but I never get one, so I finally did this year. This is a counter full of things I love! (and our fridge in the background filled with Christmas cards from friends and family!) :)



By the way, I will be posting a really cool video on here soon. It's of us decorating the Christmas tree, but I think it turned out pretty neat. We did a time lapse record! :) You'll see. Here's a preview of the tree decorating...Well, work has been crazy with the holidays, but I'm really glad to have a job (even if it does change our holiday plans) and it's great to feel useful and bring home the rent money! My nine hour shift yesterday was tough. Nine hours is not usually a bad shift, but I had spent all of Friday in the ER with a ruptured ovarian cyst (fun...) so I wasn't really in great condition. I couldn't walk because I was so dizzy with pain meds, not to mention the pain itself, but I knew it was a busy day and my managers needed me there, so I had Aaron drive me to work and I told them I could work, but I couldn't walk. My managers were awesome!! They set me up with a chair at a register and let me sit there and ring people out for my whole shift. One of my coworkers walked me to and from the bathroom and break room whenever I needed her. I had a few customers who I've developed a first name basis with come through the line and chat with me and wish me well. It was an incredibly hard day, but the Best Buy coworkers, managers and customers made it as good as it could have possibly been given the circumstances. I love my job! Everyone is so great. :)


Last thing - Aaron and I will be having our gingerbread house making contest this week and I'll be posting the pictures here for judging by YOU! So be on the look out for that and prepare to vote!! :)

Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

We moved into our apartment last Monday in the morning... and got our Christmas tree that night! Here's the story of getting the Christmas tree...

We really put a lot of mental energy into where we wanted to go and get our Christmas tree. I wanted to cut one down this year, but as beautiful as Colorado is, their trees (at least at the tree lots we saw) just aren't up to par with imported Christmas trees (thank you South Carolina!). So we asked around and got a great tip on a Christmas tree lot nearby that was supposed to be really good. I scouted it out during the day a few days before we were going to get our tree so that we knew where we were going. The evening we had planned to get the tree, Aaron and I both came down with the flu.. :( But it was the ONLY evening that week that I had off of work so we had to do it! So off we went to our carefully selected Christmas tree lot ... and it was closed! Bummer!! So, after all of that, we dragged our sick selves to the local grocery store and found a tree there (thank you King Soopers!). So it worked out. I'm pretty sure we got the BEST one they had!! I LOVE our tree!! :)




(we only had our phones with us to take pictures, sorry for the bad quality)

Driving home was interesting because it wasn't put on the car very well (a guy at the store helped us) and it was slowly inching backwards on the car the whole way home! I had to reach out the windows and hang onto the ropes to keep it on the car! Good thing we were only a couple of miles away. It was a little nerve-racking, but funny!

We took it home to our new apartment and got it all set up. Trying to get it straight was an adventure. But it looks great now! So we have no furniture or other decor yet...but we have a Christmas tree!! :) I think our priorities are definitely in order, haha.

Elf Yourself Video

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/e7mVuRKpz8xMApJT

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we had dinner at my Aunt Lisa's house with my aunts, uncles and cousins (Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Tanya, Wayne, Lauren, Ryan, Eric, Tara, Emma) AND the best part was that my brother Phil came up from Albuquerque and he was there too!!! It was so great to see him. I can't believe I hadn't seen him since last Thanksgiving. He was one of my best friends growing up and I always love being able to see him and talk with him. He wasn't alone this year, he brought a girlfriend, Marianna. Normally, that would bother me and I'd just be intimidating and cold and scare her off, but I actually really liked this one! I kept my distance at first to get a read on her and she seemed very composed and mature for her age, as well as emotionally balanced so I gave her a shot and I'm glad I did! I got a good vibe from her and we were able to have a really great talk later in the evening. So - never thought I'd say this about a girl Phil brought around, but... - I approve! (In college my buddy Ron gave me a stamp that said "Janae approved", should I stamp her with it?? lol)

Anyway, Thanksgiving was great, Aunt Lisa did an amazing job putting everything together and the table conversation was lots of fun. I loved being able to spend time with everyone talking, eating, playing games and laughing. And we were sent home with entire pumpkin pie and some leftover turkey! It was a great day :)

The next day I worked 12 hours for Black Friday, but Phil, Marianna, Aunt Tanya, Tara and Emma all came in and hung out with me at work for about an hour! It was fun to help them shop, lol. It really helped my day move along. I'm glad I got new shoes for work before Black Friday ($12 on clearance! lol) because my feet didn't hurt at all even after the long day! We had pretty good stock of everything so not very many people went away disappointed. Our store was actually number one in the district for camera sales! And since I'm in the camera department that made me pretty happy :)

Still Transitioning...

We've been here about 3 weeks now and it's going pretty well. I've learned how to drive almost everywhere in Longmont without a GPS so I guess that means I'm officially acclimated right??

I've been getting about 30+ hours a week at Best Buy and it's been nice to stay so busy. It's a smaller store than my last one, which I didn't like at first, but the holiday traffic has made it better. Plus it's nice to be able to be recognized for what I bring to the table rather than being lost in the crowd. Aaron is on a different schedule here where he puts in extra hours during the week and has every other Friday off and he likes that. He's a little overwhelmed by all the extra security clearance things at his work as well as the new programming language he's having to learn, but he's handling it pretty well.

Next Monday we're moving into our apartment. We're enjoying the free breakfast, cable and jacuzzi, but it will be nice to have our own place. We've never had cable before and I have to admit I became a bit of an HGTV addict for the first two weeks we were here! House hunters was very addicting. Speaking of which, we have been doing a little house hunting ourselves to get an idea of the market out here. But we still need to sell our house in O'Fallon! It's not looking too promising right now, so we could use some extra prayers!

Longmont, Colorado

Well we made it to Colorado! We arrived about 9 days ago after two days of driving. We had to drive separately so we could get both of our cars here on time, but it worked out really well. I ended up being really glad for the extra space to bring more things, as well as the freedom to listen to whatever I wanted the whole way! But I did miss the opportunity to chat with Aaron for two straight days, lol. Sugar and Sampson were really fantastic travelers! I was very proud of them. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the backseat of my car, they had the whole backseat to themselves and I made them quite the hangout area! They were pretty happy campers.

We arrived at our hotel in Longmont, Colorado around 6pm and were greeted by Grammy, Papa, Aunt Tanya, Wayne, Tara and Emma!! They took us out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and we had a great time hanging out and chatting with them! It was so fun! Talk about a welcome committee! :)

The next morning we went to a nearby ward and then spent the afternoon at my Aunt Tanya's house having lunch and hanging out. Monday morning Aaron and I both started work! We celebrated our first day by going to Applebee's! We both think our jobs are kind of boring...but we're just happy to have jobs! (I transferred stores with Best Buy, in case anyone is wondering how I got a job so fast. The Fairview Heights Best Buy is WAAAAAY better than the Longmont Best Buy btw...I miss my amazing coworkers and I really wish there was more customer traffic, but I love that I'm finally getting a lot of hours $$!)

Aaron's company is putting us up in a hotel for 30 days so we've been living at a hotel! We have a little kitchenette which is really nice, so it's not so bad. I like being able to walk down the hall and use the treadmill or jacuzzi in the evenings! The dogs don't like not having a lot of room to run around, but I've been trying to take them on walks when I can. Just short walks though...it's too cold to be outside too long! I like that it's a dry cold here though. St Louis was so humid that the chill cut right through you! This weather is pretty easy to handle with a warm jacket and scarf. Although the dryness in general is taking some getting used to. We've had to go buy more chapstick and drink a lot more water! The first week we were here I was having a really hard time with dehydration... one night I woke up feeling like my insides were in flames and I felt unbearable nauseous - it was miserable! But nothing a few bottles of water couldn't fix :)

Anyway, we like Colorado. I'm really enjoying living near family! Last Wednesday I drove an hour south to Parker where my Grammy and Papa live. I went to lunch with Grammy and my cousin Emma, then Emma and I did a little shopping for some work clothes I needed (khaki pants - Best Buy style!), and Grammy and I went back to her house and watched Oprah and talked with Papa. Then I went and spent the evening with my Aunt Lisa, Lauren, Ryan and Eric. It was so fun to talk with them! It was weird to leave and know I'd see them again in only a week, rather than another year or so! I'm loving this!

Well....that's pretty much the update! Oh we also lined up an apartment this past Saturday, so we have a place to go when our 30 days is up in the hotel! We're really happy with what we found, so hopefully it turns out to be a good temporary situation for us until we can sell our house in Illinois.

Good-bye Illinois!

Okay I haven't blogged in a long time... mostly because I don't think anyone reads my blog, lol. So I guess this will be a fun little test to see if posting this results in anyone actually finding out that....

WE'RE MOVING!!

Aaron is transferring within his company to a new project at the Lockheed Martin site in Boulder, CO! The crazy part is that we have to be there on November 15... yah... Thank goodness Lockheed has amazing relocation benefits so I don't even have to pack this time around! My apologies for not detailing everything about the upcoming move right now, but everything became official today so there are still a lot of details to be ironed out in the next week or so. We first got word that we might be moving about a month ago, but between waiting for the official job offer and then waiting to accept it while we balanced another job offer...it took awhile to set things in stone. We almost ended up with a company in Appleton, Wisconsin, which would have been awesome for a number of reasons, but we decided that this job would be a better fit for our family's needs right now. We feel really good about our decision and we're excited (and admittedly nervous!) for this next chapter in our lives.

Well, that's latest news on Team Robinson. Colorado, here we come!

(Feel free to share moving tips... or Colorado tips if you're familiar with the area!)