If we had a Marriage, These Would be its Thoughts

Kyle had today off, so we started out the way all holidays should begin: sleeping in. Then we went to the new Denny’s Cafe up the road to see what that’s all about. I was happy because I got a tasty breakfast for lunch. While we were out, we stopped at Home Depot for some supplies: a new pot, a set of drill bits, and a hook. Our goal for the afternoon was to hang the windchimes my parents got us for Christmas and to re-pot the rose bush. It had fallen victim to some idiotic vandals (isn’t knocking a potted plant off its ledge and onto a cement patio where it will shatter into a million pieces just about the funniest thing you can think of to do on a Saturday night at 11:30?). Anyway, we got the chimes hung (with the help of a ladder we borrowed from friends, though w/o using the drill or hook) and the plant re-potted. Hopefully it’s not too shocked to live.

It looks nice, right? I’m not sure how much wind the chimes will get in there, but we’ll see. They sound amazing! And here’s my handyman:

It’s been two years since my surgeries, and I really think that everyone should get to celebrate that they’re alive every year. It’s so much fun! (It has been argued that this is what birthdays are for, but I think it’s different. Feels different to me, anyway.)

So the anniversary of the second surgery was on Saturday, and we decided to go out to dinner to commemorate the occasion. There’s a local Italian place called Strizzi’s that I’ve been wanting to try, plus Kyle won a gift card at a work party last month. It was decided! We walked around downtown Livermore while we waited and then got to sit at a tall table (I love tall tables!). The food was really good and we sat around saying things like, “Two years ago I couldn’t have eaten this food, since it’s definitely not a clear liquid diet,” and remembering how my awesome friends and family got me through.

It was a good evening.

Can you guess which was cooked by me and which was the replacement bacon cooked by Kyle?

Kyle and I went to my family’s, in Frisco, TX, for Christmas this year. It was awesome! We played a lot of games, including Guitar Hero…

…Mario Kart…

…and the New Super Mario Bros. (Colton and Christopher had a great deal of fun throwing each other off of cliffs.)

We got to meet Miles, Christopher and Jenny’s 8-month-old son. He’s freaking adorable!

On Christmas Eve, we played a Christmas Family Feud game that was a ton of fun. I only wish I could remember what had just happened to make them all look like that:

Now, a couple of pics from Christmas Day: I’m wearing the robe Kyle’s mom made for me (now I can stop stealing Kyle’s!) and switching out my old, dying watch for the new one Kyle got me.

Here’s Kyle with his new apron!

We’re still trying to figure out how best to hang the set of wind chimes my parents got us, but I’m totally stoked about them.

While we were home, I also got to see Melanie, which was great (even if the picture isn’t)…

…as well as go through all the stuff my parents had of mine and sort out what to keep and what to trash. Kyle had a lot of fun reading from my journal from when I was 10 or so and making us all laugh at the silliness therein, but this is me tying on an old pair of pointe shoes.

The holiday was also the occasion for new family pictures. We weren’t sure what we were going to do, since the original plan was to do them outside in the park, but it was raining and freezing that day. The family ended up setting up a really nice area in our kitchen, using brown sheets as a backdrop. I don’t have the ones taken by the photographer yet, but here’s a cute one of Miles and Maddox, taken the next day.

We got to spend a wonderful 9 days there with family before driving back here again. We took 3 days to drive out, but we were racing a storm on our way home, so we did the return trip in 2 days. That second day was crazy: we had sunshine, fog, snow, rain, and hail! Obviously, though, we made it home safely. It was so good to see everyone while we could, though.