2016 is almost over!

Wow, I can't believe December is already almost over!  Crazy!!  I'm sorry I haven't posted much - This month really got away from me! We've been keeping very busy with work, Christmas activities, and lots of other stuff going on! I'll try to do a super quick summary of the month. One super fun thing that we did at the beginning of the month was we went to a concert!  If you've ever seen The Life Aquatic movie (from 2004), then you know who Seu Jorge is... He's a Brazilian musician that was hired by Wes Anderson to be in the movie and sing David Bowie songs. He does these really beautiful covers of David Bowie songs in Portuguese. He's doing a small tour right now as a tribute to David Bowie, and it was a really amazing show.  It was just Seu Jorge and his acoustic guitar on stage, singing David Bowie songs in Portuguese... It was a little bit of heaven.

Here's Seu Jorge in The Life Aquatic!

I spent about a week in California visiting friends/family in the middle of this month, and it was SO great to see everyone. The time flew by, as it always does. It was great to be there and enjoy some of the Christmas traditions with my family, and we even had a big present opening night on the 20th. On the 21st we did a big Christmas train ride, and the kiddos loved that. I left super early on the 22nd and headed back to Philly!  Here are some pictures from my time in CA! 

The fireplace at my parents' house! So darn Christmasy. 

We made a gingerbread house one night! My nieces decorated it (but I did that piping on the roof! Not too shabby eh?  Those years of decorating cakes at Baskin Robbins still comes in handy sometimes...).

Here's Maggie working on the Kong toy I got her!  She can destroy ANY toy (except for that orange one by her bed!), so every year I try to find one that she can't destroy. This one lasted a while, but she eventually started getting chunks off of it. 

This was from the Christmas train. That's Andrew (Amanda's brother), and his wife Nicole, and their adorable daughter Aria.  Oh and an "elf" is behind Aria. 

Here's Nicole and Andrew's son AJ with Santa! 

Here's Addison happily clapping, and that's Nicole and Andrew's other son Elijah... He was NOT enjoying the train ride, but he's 12... so life is tough when you're 12.  I remember not really liking much of anything when I was 12! 

There's my brother and AJ fist-bumping, and Amanda, Cassidy, and Addison! 

This was after the train ride was over!  Addison was sooo happy. And that girl in the front was from one of the skits on the train... She was way too happy...

And here's AJ and Santa again! 

This year we spent Christmas with Kevin's family, and next we're we'll be in CA with my family. Last year we tried to split the holiday, and that was a terrible idea... We were flying back to PA on Christmas Day, and that was just nutty/stressful/delay-filled and didn't work out well. This was my first Christmas away from my family though, and it was more difficult than I expected!  I kept having to try to fight off feeling down about it. McGee's family is wonderful of course and their Christmas is really fun too, but it was still really hard for me this year. 

Christmas Eve dinner was fajitas, and that night Kevin's cousin Ryan dresses up as Santa for all of the extended family's kiddos. They've asked Kevin to do it too, but he has definitely declined... haha :)  Ryan has incredible patience though, and he's done this a few years now. On Christmas night we had Cajun Christmas dinner which is a McGee Family Christmas tradition! Kevin's dad spends a LOT of time cooking up a bunch of Cajun dishes including crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, alligator nuggets, and many more!  It was quite delicious. 

Here's Ryan getting ready on Christmas Eve!

The tummy looks pretty good!  It took a lot of time (and a LOT of padding) to get it looking like Santa's belly, but we were happy with the final results. After he was all ready, we drove over to an aunt's house where all of the little kids were hanging out! 

The kiddos were so sweet and so happy to see Santa. 

Kevin's cousin Mary Eileen (everyone calls her Mare Mare) got Guinness a bow tie! It has bananas on it and attaches to his collar, and she also got him a banana chew toy that he's quite obsessed with. 

Such a dapper pup! He couldn't even tell he was wearing it, so he didn't mind it at all. Haha

Even though it was really hard to be away from my family, it was still a really fun time with Kevin's family, and it was great to be able to sleep in our own house and our own bed for Christmas! We woke up on Christmas morning and opened presents around our tree - It was lovely to spend Christmas morning with just the two of us (plus Guinness, of course) :)  

Now I've caught a bit of a cold or flu or something... So I've been fighting that off for a few days now. My throat is just insanely sore and swollen. So Kevin's been taking very good care of me and making me soup and bought me some juice that has an insane amount of vitamins (especially Vitamin C). I'm hoping it's going to go away very quickly... because tomorrow is New Year's Eve!  We always go into Philly on New Year's Day to enjoy the parade and hang out with Timmy and some other friends, so I hope I'm feeling up for that. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope you all have a fun and safe New Year's Eve!! 

Wow, it's been a month!

Wow, sorry it's been a whole month since I've posted anything!  Things have been crazy... First, the election happened right after my last post, and that kinda put me in a funk for quite a while. And work has been CRAZY busy for the last month... Like I've been working a minimum of 12 hours per day... Yep, minimum.  It's total b.s.  I think things are finally (maybe... hopefully...) starting to calm down this week to where I can maybe work normal-ish hours. And McGee and I also went to California for a visit for Thanksgiving!!  It was amazing to be home and see family and friends, and it was my first time home for Thanksgiving in about 10 years. It was SO great to be with everyone, and to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner as a family again.  We also went to Apple Hill while we were there, and we explored Oakdale a bit more! Here's a few pictures from my time there:

We had some great relaxation time while we were there!  We both really needed it. 

Cassidy on the pony ride at Apple Hill! 

Addison on her pony!  She's obsessed with horses, so she was beaming the whole ride. 

The guys! We were killing some time before the Oakdale Cowboy Museum opened. We arrived like 10 minutes after it opened but like 5 minutes before any staff arrived... Haha :) 

On the topic of Fall activities, I should update you that I finished all of the Fall Bucket List items from my previous post, except that I didn't make any pumpkin goodness... I did EAT some pumpkin goodness, but I just didn't cook anything pumpkin this year.  Next year though!!

I can't believe Christmas is coming up so quickly!!  It's insanity. Kevin put the lights up on our house (and cleaned our gutters) while I worked on bagging up some more of our leaves from our yard. The lights look soooo pretty on our house (great job, Kevin!!) and we also worked on decorating inside our house too. We still have a bit more to do, but everything is looking so pretty and really putting me in the Christmas spirit.  Here are some pictures of our tree!!  I'll post pictures of other decorations (and our outdoor lights) at another time.

One view of our tree! 

An up-close picture of our amazing tree skirt that my parents sent to us!  We love it. 

Another view of the tree skirt! Amazing!! 

Here's our tree topper!!  We got an ACTUAL tree topper this year!  But we also had to throw Bumble up there like in previous years. 

Here's some of our favorite ornaments!  There are way too many favorites to take pictures of, but I thought this was a nice little group. 

Here's a few more!  That Mickey ornament is from my brother and sister-in-law when they just went to Disneyland this year! And we bought that little tiny trailer ornament on the left side of the picture, because that's definitely our dream!  We want to retire (like maybe tomorrow?  Come on Lottery...) and buy a small trailer and just travel all around! 

And here's a front view of our tree with a few presents already under it! We have a lot more wrapping to do... 

In other news, we also bought a new car last weekend!  We traded in Kevin's car and bought a Subaru Crosstrek. It's beautiful, and we're loving it.  Now we have TWO Subarus, which means we will both have All-Wheel-Drive at all times (VERY important for winters out here!). It's a relief to have that process over with! We've been looking into getting a new car for over a year.

Well guys, back to work I go!  I hope you're all having a great week and a great December so far!!