groundhog day.

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, and it's official: Spring is on its way! And I am so excited, because this winter weather has been brutal.

Another happening yesterday: Erica and Wes invited us over for a soda-tasting party to celebrate the groundhog. When we arrived, Erica and Rachel were in the laptop looking up groundhog desserts and groundhog songs to sing. We found quite a few good ones.

Erica and Wes had bought 10 gourmet sodas for all of us to taste in rounds of about three: orange soda, huckleberry, creamy lime, gingerale (with real pieces of ginger), pig iron cola, cucumber, peach, chocolate, bubble up (the original 7-up), and a raspberry soda that they made themselves! My favorite was the peach, but all of them were so good. Even the chocolate one (I thought it was going to be disgusting).

While we were tasting the pig iron cola, Wes reached for his smart glasses and gave us a lecture of how the cola came about. 

In between soda-tasting rounds, we played Liar's Dice and Blurt. Playing games with these people is so intense! The best group for board games. And while we sat there around their table in their 70's apartment, playing with dice and plastic cups, listening to records, I felt like I was in That 70's Show for just a minute. 

Cheers to a good party!

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mlk.

On Monday morning, I decided to have a small Martin Luther King, Jr. party, since it was his day, after all. I invited Erica and Rachel over for some MLK desserts, and Zac joined us for some girl time. We drank chocolate milk and ate oreo cookies, and then watched Napoleon Dynamite, because 1. Erica has been wanting to watch it for weeks, and 2. Kip is white and Lafawnduh is black, and there is no better way to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. than that.

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new year's eve.

On New Year's Eve, we decided to spend the night inside, just the two of us, for a quiet celebration. We started the night with some appetizers, with some Styx and Barry Manilow records playing in the background, and ate until we were too full for dinner. We played cards, and Farkle on Zac's iPad, until I fell asleep until around 11:00. My alarm woke me up right in time to go outside in the freezing cold and light off sparklers at midnight with my love. It was the best night, and the perfect way to celebrate the start of 2013.

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christmas day.

Christmas was yesterday, and it was awesome. We slept in (I know, I know: "Just wait until you have kids"), and opened presents together later in the morning. We had fun with that one, and even made a video. We each got each other a few surprise presents that you'll see in the video if you look really closely. :) After presents, we had a breakfast of gingerbread waffles with honey and raspberries. I think I'll make those again!

Later in the day, we drove up to my parents' house and spent time with my entire family. Two parents, three sisters, three brothers, two (almost three!) sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, three nephews, one niece, two grandmas, one grandpa, one friend, and a husband. Needless to say, it was a full house, with never a quiet moment. 

We ate some good food, including a ham dinner with potato soup, and opened presents together. We even watched Christmas Oranges with my grandmas. And then, when the house quieted down a little, we drove the long drive home and fell asleep with our faces really close together, talking about how good that day was.

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"we're gonna get fat tonight!"

Zac finished his last final this morning! And he kicked butt, too! His grades were so good this semester, I'm so proud! Only 4 more semesters...

In the spirit of being done with this semester, we grabbed a couple of burgers at In-N-Out (the smell is sometimes just too much when you live right behind it), and brought them home to eat. We're going to celebrate tonight with his favorite chocolate cake that's baking right now, and two kinds of cookies! That man loves his desserts.

I'm so excited to have Zac all to myself after 5:00 for the next few weeks. Oh, the things we will do!


And, truth be told, while I was taking his picture above, he was kind of annoyed because he wanted to eat his burger without distractions. :)

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