Christmas Weekend Recap

I can't believe Christmas 2011 has already come and gone. I got the stomach flu last week for the first time since I was a little girl. I can't believe how incredibly awful it was. I'm talking every last flu symptom you can think of, including a fever. I was miserable. It sort of put the damper on Christmas in general since I didn't actually leave my house from Tuesday through Friday of last week. It's hard to feel festive when you're hanging out with the toilet.

We spent Christmas Eve with the Blankenheim side of the family. Mass was at 4:30pm and was said by the same priest who married us. He never fails to make Mass fun and to keep it a bit lively. After that we headed to Mike's grandma's house for a meal of appetizers - the best kind. Unfortunately, I was still feeling the ill effects of the stomach flu and didn't do too much eating. After a couple hours there, we headed over to Ray and Nancy's house (Mike's parents) for the gift exchange.

Christmas morning Mike and I spent with Shadow. This dog loves to open presents. He'll lick them, tear little pieces of paper off and generally work the whole thing over. Over the years, he's actually learned to pick out which ones are his under the tree and he stalks them until Christmas. Anything treat related has to go in his stocking because otherwise he'd open everything!

Shadow Opening Presents

I decided to give it one more go with the stuffed animal thing. Everyone else's dogs have cute little things that they carry around and I wanted my dog to have one too. He played with it for about ten minutes before the disembowelment began. And by disembowelment, I mean he flipped it over and basically gutted the stuffing.

Disembowelment

We decided that since we were watching, he could do it just this once (since I normally take them away at this point. He seriously took every little piece of stuffing out. The funny part is that now he carries around and snuggles with the "pelt". I guess my dog likes his toys without stuffing after all!

After opening our presents, we headed over to Mom and Dad's for the Christmas festivities with my side of the family. They made a fantastic prime rib dinner with all sorts of sides and a ton of desserts. Unfortunately, again due to tummy issues, I pretty much stuck to mashed potatoes and green beans. Mike sampled everything (including Mom's Yorkshire pudding) and said it was pretty yummy! That said, I did bring some fudge home and was finally able to sample some tonight... as always, no one makes fudge like my mama! We opened our presents, hung out for a while and had dinner. It was great!

Today we headed out to a ranch in Ione to go target shooting. Sounds odd, I know. One of the gifts that the family got Raymond was a gun similar to the one he carried in Vietnam (the legal civilian version, of course) and he wanted to try it out. We were also given a rifle for our wedding (it has our name and wedding date engraved on it too!) and my dad brought a bunch of the guns that my grandpa had given him. One of them is a rifle that was made in 1900... it was beautiful and still fires like a dream! We had a blast shooting at buckets and stumps!

I Still Like The Shotgun Better!

Check out my Facebook page for more pictures... it was a great time! All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas, I just wish Mike and I were both feeling better (he's fighting a cold). We were spoiled by our families and had a fantastic time!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Christmastime Is Here

In case you missed my overly descriptive Facebook posts (sorry!), I had a run in with the stomach flu for the first time since I was like two years old. It was awful. I thought I was going to die. I hate nothing more than throwing up, and that's exactly what I did for two days straight.

I think the thing I hate the most about being sick is how disruptive it is. I had a lot of stuff planned this week that I didn't get done. I hate that! Fortunately, I seem to be on the upswing now... I'm not craving In-N-Out yet, but solid food stays where it should and I'm just really tired.

In other news, the last of our gifts got here today and is now wrapped under the tree. Hooray! We have quite the collection of presents under there this year!

Our Happy Little Christmas Tree

I had really been looking forward to baking cookies today because that always puts me in the Christmas spirit, but was very gently told by my family that no one else wants the stomach flu and if I did bring cookies, they would be boycotted. So I settled for wrapping presents. It will have to do for this year!

I plan to finish up some work stuff this afternoon, then be fairly lazy until tomorrow. We'll spend Christmas Eve with the Blankenheim clan and Christmas Day with the Smithson/Barcklay clan. It should be a lot of fun!!! Do you guys have any fun and exciting Christmas plans?

It's Time!

I can officially listen now! This has got to be one of my favorites! My favorite part has to be "Eight maids a milking, they were milking just for me". Haha!



Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was spectacular... we managed to squish in some time with everyone!

Christmas Eve was spent with the Blankenheim clan... I went to church with Nancy, Katie, Grandma Jeanette and Raymond. It was a great mass at St. Bernard's given by Father George (who I hope is the priest to marry us!). After mass, we headed back to Grandma Jeanette's house for hors'dourves and presents for the kids. The food was delicious... we had everything from meatballs to bacon wrapped jalapenos to veggies. Yum! After that, we went over to Ray and Nancy's house to open more presents. It was a really fun night and I got some fantastic presents!

On Christmas morning we got up and made a fantastic french breakfast and opened presents. I think Shadow had the most fun!

Shadow Opening His Presents

Shadow And The Present Aftermath

Mike got me a real barometer... our little inside joke is that my sinus issues make me a human barometer... now I have a real one to tell me when my head is going to start hurting! It's beautiful... we have it hanging in our living room already!

In the afternoon, we headed over to my parent's house to spend the rest of Christmas Day with them. Kati, Nate, Cyndy and Alan joined us there... it was a blast! Here are some pictures of the goodies we ate:

The Fantastic Spread!

Mom had a really cool idea for decorating the table... along with tons of beautiful candles, she used one of her own quilts (hand quilted!) as the table cloth and then covered it with a plastic table cloth. It was absolutely beautiful!

Mom's Beautiful Table!

We had the most fantastic time and played a rousing game of Balderdash. Mike and I were neck in neck but eventually he pulled out all the stops and won the game.

The night ended with one of my famous sinus headaches (boo!) but all in all, Christmas this year was fantastic! I've spent most of today being mellow, relaxing and looking into some stuff for the wedding (like cake toppers!). I'm currently curled up in bed downstairs, watching "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" with Shadow curled up next to me. Not a bad day!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This weekend we worked on getting the lights up on the house. Every year when I lived at home, my dad and I went out and put up more lights than you can imagine. It was a tradition dubbed "Operation Little Elf" and each year we added more and more lights to the stash.

This year, I decided to unleash my Christmas spirit on our house. I had always decorated the old house, but now that Mike and I are living together, I have a much larger canvas to work with! I did end up having to go buy more lights (in fact, I still need to get some more to finish off one of the decks!), but it is really starting to look like Christmas over here! Mike got into it too... which makes me super happy! He was out climbing all over the roof for most of yesterday clipping and wrapping lights to all of our different gutters and eaves. We even had a third elf, Mike's friend Mark, who came over to help out. I couldn't be more pleased with the results!

Now if only I can convince them to climb that giant pine tree at the top of the driveway... it would look so good with giant ornaments and big lights! Maybe next year...

I also started wrapping presents - I've got seven done, four more to wrap and a few more to shop for... not bad considering it's only December 5th! The tree always looks so much better with presents underneath!

'Tis the Season!

Hooray, hooray, hooray! It's finally here... Christmas Season! This last weekend I busted out the iPod Christmas mix, the decorations and the two Christmas trees! Oh, the beauty of combining two entire households... now there's a tree for upstairs and a tree for downstairs! The only thing I really have left to decorate is the outside. I'm debating on whether I put lights up or not this year. We'll see if I can convince the Grinch to help me hang them!

There's something so magical about the Christmas Season. For me, it goes beyond presents. There's something about the cold (now snow! I get snow sometimes!), the shopping, the lights and the music. Something about a good Christmas song just puts a smile on my face!

I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas albums with you faithful blog readers:

• Boys II Men: Christmas Interpretations. Their a capella version of "Silent Night" will make you weep!
• Straight No Chaser: Christmas Cheers. If you haven't heard me rave about them, you haven't been listening! "The 12 Days of Christmas" is absolutely hilarious!
• Mannheim Steamroller: Fresh Aire. I absolutely love their "Carol of the Bells". You can't go wrong with any of their Christmas albums, but this one is my favorite.
• Singles
  • The Brian Setzer Orchestra: "Gettin' In the Mood (For Christmas). It's a fun twist on a great jazz song!
  • 'N Sync: "O Holy Night". Absolutely stunning.

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Without getting too sappy, I have to say I am the most wonderfully blessed woman on the planet! I have the greatest family, boyfriend and friends a girl could ask for!

My Christmas was wonderful this year. I went to Mom and Dad's yesterday and hung out with Mom, Dad, Oma, Kati and Nate. We went to Christmas Eve Mass followed by the traditional Smithson family hors d'oeuvres. It's not Christmas without the fondue! Kati, Dad and I did a little singing around the piano and we each opened one present.

This morning, Shadow started the day by capturing and killing a Christmas rat. He was so dang proud, but it was completely gross. We're working on introducing him and Tucker, so we decided that now is as good as any time. They did surprisingly well... there were a few little growling matches, but they're definitely getting the hang of it! We opened the rest of our gifts this morning and had a fantastic french toast breakfast!

This evening I headed up to have Christmas dinner with the Blankenheim clan... and 7 beef ribs... we had FANTASTIC prime rib! It was a really nice time with tons of good food!

As I said, I'm so incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful life. I'm so happy I had the chance to spend time with everyone that I did, and to those of you who texted or emailed, it was great to hear from you too! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

I Am Spoiled.

I have the best boyfriend in the whole wide world. Really. Possibly the whole wide universe. For Christmas this year Mike got me a brand new iPhone 3GS. I got to get it early (last night) because we figured the store would be a mess the closer we got to Christmas (or in the couple days after). I have had it for less than 24 hours and I honestly do not know how I lived without it. I know that sounds really dramatic, but honestly, there are so many cool things that this phone does that just plain makes life easier!

So far, one of my favorite "aps" is the to do list. I'm attempting to use it as my planner, contacts, to do list, etc. Very hard for me since I really like to write things down, but I like the idea of having it all in one place. I also thing Shazaam is pretty cool - you can hold your phone up to the radio and it will tell you the name of the song playing as well as who sings it. No more trying to guess the name of a song! I haven't had much time to play with most of the aps, but I also found a grocery list that I'm going to try. I can't wait to see what else is out there... there seems to be something for everyone!

Since I'm terribly hard on all things electronic, I asked the guy at the AT&T store which case they recommend. I ended up ordering the OtterBox... he claims that you can drop it, throw it, even get it a little wet and this case will protect it. The case is bulky, but I'd rather have that than destroy my new phone!

I think back to my first cell phone (one of the fabulous Nokias) and the fact that all I did on it was make calls. Now I have a phone that will show me a satellite picture of the top of my house! I'm completely amazed at how much technology has changed!

Return to Blogger and Christmas Shopping

Well, a couple years ago, I switched from Blogger over to Vox. Now, I'm making the switch back. I recently switched my email address to a Google address and found that they've done a ton to make Blogger easier to use and it now actually has all of the features that I wished it had before I left. I figure, why not tie it all together with my email address? So, if you're looking for the 2 years of posts that are missing from this blog, you can go to http://annabananna81.vox.com to catch up. I don't promise to post tons and tons on here, but I miss having a blog. So here we are.

Today I did something I've never done before. I did my Christmas shopping online. That's right, all of it. For those of you who don't quite know me well enough, I hate shopping. With a passion. People are mean, you have to wait in line and you end up getting stepped on. I knew what I wanted to get everyone, so I checked into getting it online. So many places are doing free shipping for the holidays that it ended up being a bargain! I put my jammies on, cranked up the Christmas music on Itunes and was done in about an hour! Talk about the comforts of home! I couldn't be more pleased with my shopping experience!

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Mine was great - I got some wonderful gifts (yeah for MAC makeup and the whole "Friends" collection!) and spent time with my family. We sang midnight mass last night, which was beautiful and Kati's home, which is always a blast. I took the rest of the week off, so I plan to do a lot of sleeping (time to catch up from the past few crazy weeks) and some more house hunting. Most of all, I plan to relax and spend time with Mom, Dad and Kati! Thanks to everyone who called, texted or emailed today!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas To All... And To All A Good Night!

Wow, what a Christmas this was! Christmas mass went really well and we had a blast. We had some friends over on Christmas Day Night (if that makes any sense) and had a blast with them - played games, watched movies, and then I fell asleep. Way to act super old, Anna. Then came the presents... I can't believe how spoiled I am! :) I got a Bose sound dock for my iPod, beautiful scarves (ha ha, Eva, I got mine first!), my favorite makeup, a ticket to the ballet with my mom and dad and (drumroll please):

KINGS/LAKERS TICKETS!

That's right, I, Anna T. Smithson, will be at the coming Kings/Lakers game! Honestly, this is a dream come true! I will be wearing my gold Bibby jersey and screaming like a banshee. It's going to be a blast!

I also got a pair of GAP "curvy" jeans. All you ladies out there, you must get a pair. I went in today and bought another pair for myself. Seriously, they are made for "women whose waist is smaller than their hips". Um, hello!!! Honestly, they are a perfect fit and come in short for us little people. Pricey, but worth it (and they're on sale now!).

Today I went shopping with my sister and for one of the few times I can remember, spent my Christmas money on something totally frivolous that I normally wouldn't buy myself. I bought the silver Motorola Razor phone. OMG, I love it! To let you know how far in the dark ages I've been with my cell phones, I've never had a phone that has the following features:

• a camera
• cool ring tones (like REAL songs, not something that sounds like a bad keyboard)
• voice activated dialing
• pictures that pop up when people call
• that thing where when you turn the sound down it goes "beep beep beep" until you're all the way down. I love that and have been jealous of other cell phone owners...

I'm in heaven. I've been playing with the dang thing all afternoon. Now I just need people to call me...
I'm such a spoiled brat.

Wow!

What a week! I seriously feel like I've been in a tornado for the last week and then tonight (just now) it spit me out. Now I don't know what to do with myself!

Thursday and Friday nights I had my dress rehearsals. They went pretty well. A couple of sour notes, but over all, not too bad. Adam and Eva and Oma came out on Friday night and the weekend went into full effect. We had so much fun!

First things first. Friday night when I get home from rehearsal the whole gang was there. Eva has what looks like a donut box. She tells me no Christmas is complete without Ginger Bibbys®. At this point a little light bulb goes on in my head. She spent all day on Friday making me the most amazing ginger bread cookies that were decorated like Mike Bibby. They're so awesome that I'm even taking one into work to show it off tomorrow. She went through a whole design process and had several prototype Bibbies until she got the perfect one. HOLY CRAP!!!



And she even made little Ginger Nanners® (my nickname) to go with the Ginger Bibby®!


In addition to that, they gave me the gold Bibby jersey for Christmas... I LOVE IT! :)

Saturday was a day of fun. We woke up to go to Jazzercise, Eva almost ruined a poor little kid's dream of Santa because there was a Santa's workshop instead of jazzercise, we went to Target, had lunch with mom and got to see her awesome shop, and then went to the concert. It turned out really well (in my completely unbiased opinion) and I think everyone had a lot of fun. One of the coolest parts for me was the audience sing along. It was amazing to hear 3,900 people singing back at me!!! Adam and Eva were hilarious to watch - Eva was holding her music at the precise angle and they just looked like they were having a blast.

Today we did the lay around. Had a yummy breakfast and took a long nap. Holy cow, I was so tired from the whole weekend! Went to church, had dinner with a friend and here I am, blogging away. I think it's bed time now. Good night!

All in all, it was a great weekend. I had so much fun with the family!

God's Way

So I'll bet this title stumped you... allow me to explain.

Well, I was on my way to work this morning - not running late or anything, just kinda cruising. However, when I cruise, I like to do the speed limit. Especially if I'm in the fast lane. Back to the story. So I'm cruising and this lady pulls her little gold Mazda in front of me. Without a blinker. Which I guess I'm ok with since I just moved back from San Diego, where I think there's actually a law against using your blinkers. She pulls in front of me and slooooooooooooooooooooows doooooooooown. A lot. Now, I'm driving thinking "Hey, did I do something to make this lady mad? Is that why she suddenly slowed down?" People are zooming past us in the slow lane and there's about a five car gap between her and the guy in front of her. Now I'm getting really curious. By the time I decide to pass her, it's too close to where I turn left, so I decide to wait it out and pray she goes straight. Then her left hand blinker comes on. Darn it. Once we turn I zip past her, but take a little look to see who she is (not a mean glare or anything, just a look). She was just a normal lady. Not on a cell phone, not old, not tending to kids in the back seat. Just a normal, middle aged woman driving her Mazda slow. That really got me thinking. Maybe she slowed me down for a reason. We had to cross some rail road tracks - perhaps I could have been hit by a train had I sped over them like normal. Maybe someone would have run the red light if I cruised through the yellow one. Who knows. It sounds weird, but I had this odd feeling that the lady in the gold Mazda was there for a reason. God's way of slowing me down today.

Maybe I was just hungry.

In other news, Adam, Eva and Oma will be here the day after tomorrow! Woo hoo! We start dress rehearsals tomorrow night, so I'll be having some looooooooong days. But it's worth it. I absolutely love performing and everything that goes with it!

Oh, and I have some more "Operation Little Elf" pictures. Mrs. Claus took some on our final day of decorating:

Lights?

So yes, we have a final count. However, today as I was leaving for church I noticed some "suspicious activity" up in the court. Another neighbor is just now putting his lights up. I'm going to have to hold off on revealing the final count until we can confirm that our house is better. As far as I could tell, it's just icicle lights and a little light tree, but we need to make sure. So the light count revealing is on hold in case we are going to need to add on.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Went to church and out with a friend on Friday night. Saturday we finished the lights on the house and I went out with Brigitte to watch boxing with some hilarious beer-drinking boys. Today was spent decorating for Christmas and cleaning up. Laundry and all of that fun stuff.

This week should be pretty busy - I have rehearsals or dress rehearsals almost every day. I have to miss two Christmas parties on Friday because of rehearsal. But it's all worth it because we're going to have a great program put together! I'm so excited that so many people I know are coming to see it!

Have a great night! :)

Lights

Got ya with that title, didn't I?

No, you can't have the final light count OR any pictures. For two reasons:

1. We aren't finished. We have some more "out-doing" to do.
2. It's raining. I am not standing in the rain in the middle of the street to take pictures.

I'm going to keep you in suspense. :) But yes, you will eventually get both pictures and a final count. We had a little "situation" tonight. Below a fuse on the front porch and took out 1/4 of the house. Fortunately "Big Elf" was able to perform some fuse maintenance and we're up and running again. Gotta be careful with the electricity and these rain storms...

HOWEVER, you MAY see pictures of Thanksgiving:


And of us in SF (yes, I know I suck at getting the red eye out):




I'm so hot in a beanie.

So kidding. I was totally sick and thought my head was going to fall off.

Anyways, off to watch "ER". :)

Weekend Wrap Up

What a cool weekend. Pretty mellow, but nice. On Friday night I had a wonderful night out with Brigitte and Amber - we had dinner at Mongolian BBQ and then spend some quality time together at Target. Girls, it was a blast!

Saturday was the beginning of "Operation Little Elf". That would be the Christmas light decorating. Determined to out do the neighbors and get a jump on things, we started the untangling process early Saturday morning. This also involves checking for burnt out bulbs and loose wires. Cody begged to help...

...so we let him be the look out in case the neighbors tried to spy on us.

"Big Elf" and "Little Elf" only decorate in their festive holiday shirts!


Today was a mellow day as well. Went to Kohl's, which is very quickly moving up my list of favorite stores (I love the Candies line of clothes, shoes and bags) and then a nice long nap. Sang at church and came home to watch my Sacramento Kings WIN! Yes, we finally won a game. It's been a slow start to the season, but it was a great win! Woo hoo!

Some of you might be wondering at the color/name change of the blog. I was getting a little tired of green, and we all know that blue is my favorite color, so I went with it. A nice little change. Let me know what you think of it! As far as the name, I was listening to some Travis Tritt tonight and heard his song "Down The Road I Go". Kind of a cool little song and it's all about living life and not knowing where it's going to take you. But you're going down that road. I like it. So I'm going with it. It was either that or "Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof". Nah...