Just Another Day

Andrea tagged me with this Christmas list. Please feel free to join in!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? ooh – wrapping paper for Christmas!

2. Tree–Real or Artificial? real, if I had my choice – fake, since we live in a small apartment

3. When do you put Christmas tree up? It varies – some weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas4. When do you take the tree down? Around January 1st5. Like egg nog? Love it – especially in coffee!

6. Do you have a nativity scene? No, but I’d like to have one. The one at my dad’s has lost lots of the key players (baby Jesus, in fact!), but I’d like to have one just like the original some day.

7. Favorite gift received as a child? Well, it was a birthday gift, not Christmas – but, Cookie Monster doll

8. Hardest person to buy for? William

9. Easiest person to buy for? my sisters

10.Worst Christmas present? who dislikes any present?

11. Mail or email a Christmas Card? depends on my organization that year

12. Favorite Christmas movie? ELF

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Maybe next weekend. 😉 

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? don’t think so

15. Favorite food to eat on Christmas? lefse

16. Clear or colored tree lights? colored

17. Favorite Christmas Songs?  I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Silent Night

18. Travel during Christmas or Stay home? Travel

19. Can you name Santa’s reindeer? yep

20. Angel or Star on Tree top? neither, but I think I’d go for a star

21. Open presents on Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning 

While the work weeks continue to fly by, each faster than the previous, the weekends somehow move faster yet! And so I find myself winding this weekend down with a blog post instead of the normal routine of Desperate Housewives… here’s hoping the networks can get their heads out of their rears and settle with the writers guild. (If you haven’t really learned about the big strike, I’d recommend reading an article or two. It’s fascinating how little logic is used by some pretty powerful people sometimes.) So, while I’m missing my too-many programs, I’m hoping the writers stay strong and hold out for what they deserve.

Yeah… anyway…

We had a lovely weekend. April and Jesse joined us Friday night. We headed out for dinner at Poncho & Lefty’s – tasty, and fun. Of course this offered the perfect opportunity to be silly – a state which we Aune girls adore. In good form, the soon-to-be newest member of the family played along quite well.

We ate entirely way too much this weekend and moved entirely too little, so it was definitely a nice time!

Ape and I did sneak in a visit with Sara at Caribou coffee as well as a trip to the mall. Then she and Jesse were on their own for the evening as Bill and I went to my work Christmas party. It was a nice time – lots of tasty food and certainly fun to meet all the spouses.

And now it’s time to start catching up on 24 again – here we come, Season Four!

Make your days Merry and Bright, folks!

Bill and I have been spending every spare moment learning this sweet holiday dance routine.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/erin_bill_elf.mov 320 250]

Alright – maybe not. However, you can create your own holiday happiness at http://www.elfyourself.com/

Every Christmas since we’ve been married, Bill and I have been flying off from about a week before the holiday until after New Year’s. As a result, we’ve never put up a tree together. We’re not allowed to have a live tree in our apartment, so I’d given up on the idea of a tree here – the expense of “starting” a Christmas tree (skirt, ornaments, tree topper, garland, lights…) combined with the lack of love for an expensive fake tree brought me back to the apartment empty handed after my tree hunt yesterday. Today, though, I found myself wandering through Target where I found this perfect filler for the holidays. It’s a three foot, already lit, fake tree in a planter. It fits perfectly on our coffee table, and it requires little more than the four $0.99 ornaments we’ve hung on it. Our place feels more Christmasy already! Now, I may just have to go hunting for a little mistletoe…

I finally imported the pictures from our camera and decided I’d share.

I’ve been tagged again.

This time by Tiff at Yurts N Dogs

Rules:

link to the person who tagged you

post the rules

name 8 things others don’t know about you

link to 8 other bloggers

Lets see if I can come up with eight interesting little-known facts…

1) I once sprained my ankle dancing around the livingroom. It turned a nasty mixture of black, blue, and yellow and swelled to the size of a grapefruit.

2) The longest I’d ever been away from my family before college was 3 nights (at Camp Vermilion – 5 miles from my dad’s across the lake). I made it 2 weeks before heading back North after starting freshman year at BSU.

3) One of my nick names is “Pants”… a terrible evolution of a near-as-bad original nick name – Scooter Pie.

4) I know all the words to M.C. Hammer’s “You Can’t Touch This”

5) Somewhere deep inside me, there is a professional floor hockey player screeming to get out. 🙂

6) In high school I, along with two of my friends, used to sing the national anthem before all the basketball games – our other hits included “Sisters” and “Three Little Maids from School” – that was a lifetime ago!

7) I’ve donated my hair to Locks of Love 3 times. It grows like weeds.

8) I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain… 🙂

I’m going to tag the following blogs and hope they have better luck than I did with the interesting facts!

April at Life with April

Amy at Life in Iowa

Amanda at Amanda’s Blog

Andrea at Into the Life of a Mom

Bill at Bill III’s Blog

Christie at Catchin’ Up with Christie

Laura at Unearthing Grace

Mike at Chaos

I can’t believe we’re half way through the week, and in moments I’ll be flying out the door to Divas. 

Bill and I made it back to Brainerd safely on Sudnay where it was far warmer than the temps we’d left in Cook.  It continues to cool down here, though, and I imagine we might see winter soon! It’s been tough to get up for work the past couple of mornings. I believe that has a little something to do with coming off a wonderful long weekend of sleeping in and being lazy as well as the extra hours of darkness we’ve got these days. I’m trying to think of something educational and FUN to do with my Language Arts classes during the next few weeks. Any ideas?

I haven’t started Christmas shopping. Yikes! I think Bill and I are going to meet Ape and Jesse for a hockey game in the cities this weekend, so perhaps then. Probably not, though. I’m not very good about Christmas shopping.  

What a random post this is… sorry for the lack of pictures… and interesting topics! 🙂

Happy 32nd Birthday to my sweet sister, Laura. We Love You!

We’ve had a weekend full of family, fun, and food. We rolled into Dad’s around 8:00 Wednesday evening. The drive went quickly… especially since Bill was nice enough to let me nap in the passenger’s seat after a “long” short week. Once at home we visited a while and then hit the sack.Thursday morning we started into the cooking and baking. Bill made his tasty apple pie and I threw together a pecan pie before getting the turkey ready for the oven. This was the third turkey I’ve ever made, and I’m pretty sure you can’t screw it up if you use a Reynold’s oven bag! April took care of the green bean casserole, Lo and Dad teamed up to make the mashed potatoes, and Uncle Rick’s crew showed up with lots of yummy sides as well. We had so much food, great stories, and good time together. It was a very nice Thanksgiving.Bill and I took Gram and Gramp out for a ride yesterday. It’s always nice to get out with them. They were both doing well. I can tell they’re getting good care; I couldn’t ask for more.Tomorrow the Aune girls are heading to Duluth with Mom to help Ape hunt down a wedding dress. Should be fun.It’s been a great holiday weekend – certainly special since it’s our first back in Minnesota. We can’t help but to miss our family and friends up North, though. We hope you all enjoyed your holiday!We are so THANKFUL for you ALL!  

This week went incredibly fast. It seems like we were just getting ready to head down to Bill’s grandparents’ in Alden, and now we’ve got another weekend upon us! Good Heavens, Thursday brings Thanksgiving already! Work has been good. Most of you know that our district’s referendum didn’t pass… This means a number of things for the schools, the community, and for Bill and I. We’ll see where the road takes us, but my focus right now is enjoying the kids I work with and (hopefully) helping to prepare them for the years ahead.

We convinced Mike and Axton to stay for dinner Tuesday night – that always livens up the evening! I skipped Divas on Wednesday, as I realized (upon the appearance of yet another monsterous cold sore) that my body was telling me to slow down a little. I’ll look forward to a “breakfast” meeting with the girls this week before Thanksgiving break. Yesterday, Terrence came over from Cross Lake and we went out to dinner. It was so nice to catch up, reminisce, and just have an evening out.

Tonight I’m making Bill take me to see Fred Claus. I have this movie quite built up, so I hope it’s not a terrible disappointment. I’ll let you know.