January is almost over!

Hey you guys!  Sorry a few more weeks went by... Life has been hectic, mostly because of work. This whole week I was in Frederick, MD for a work meeting. We had co-workers from all over the world come to Frederick for this meeting, so a few of them I hadn't met before. And I was told like the day before the meeting that they wanted me to do a presentation on this project I've been working on for like a year, so I immediately went into panic mode (I HATE public speaking... It's such a phobia for me), but I made a PowerPoint presentation and tried to prepare the best I could. And the first day of the meeting they re-did the agenda so that my presentation was bumped to the morning of the last day (yesterday), so I was REALLY hoping we'd be running so far behind that we wouldn't have time for my presentation... And, that's what happened!  I was soooo beyond happy on that last day when we were so ridiculously behind that they decided to skip my presentation.

It was an exhausting and stressful week of meetings, and I'm so happy to be home and that today is Friday. I still have a lot of work to do today, but I'm giving myself a nice leisurely morning. I already took Guinness for a walk, and now I'm drinking my coffee while Guinness sleeps next to me! I'll start working soon.

The nominations for the Oscars were announced!! Kevin and I like to try to watch as many of the nominees for Best Picture as we can, and we're pretty excited about most of the movies this year!!  The only one we've seen so far is La La Land, and we LOVED it.  I highly recommend that movie.  Here's the list of the nominees, just in case you're curious!

Arrival - Starring Amy Adams. It's about aliens coming to our planet... I was actually really surprised this was nominated!  But I'm interested to see it.
Fences - Starring Denzel Washington. I've heard this one is REALLY intense, so we'll have to pick the right time to watch this one. And probably follow it up with Zoolander or something silly.
Hacksaw Ridge - This one is based on a true story about an American soldier in WWII who refused to have a weapon (even though he was sent to the front lines), and he saved 75 soldiers without firing a single shot. This one looks like a really amazing story, so I'm interested to see it.
Hell or High Water - I actually don't know anything about this movie, except that it stars Chris Pine (Captain James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek movies). So... I have no idea if I'm interested to see this one or not!
Hidden Figures - I am SO excited to see this one!!  I've really been wanting to see this one. It's the true story of 3 African American women who worked at NASA, and they were the brains behind the John Glenn mission.
La La Land - Already saw this one. Go see it if you want a fun movie that's amazing!
Lion - This one looks good! It's about a 5 year old boy from India that gets lost on a train, and ends up far away from his home/family... and he has to survive alone for a while before he is adopted by a couple in Australia. And then when he is an adult he tries to find parents/home in India.
Manchester by the Sea - This one stars Casey Affleck (Ben's brother), and I've heard it's great but it looks REALLY sad... so I don't know.
Moonlight - I don't know what this one is about! So, just like Hell or High Water, I have no idea what to expect.  

We'll see how many we get through this year!  We think we will see one of them (probably Lion or Hidden Figures) this weekend. This weekend we are also going to see our friend Michael (the opera singer), and we also have plans to go to this snowshoeing demo at a brewery! It's sponsored by REI, and they're bringing in a ton of snow (since there's no snow right now...), and there's going to be beer and snowshoeing.

Fun! 

I hope you're all doing really well, and I'll try to take some pictures this weekend! 

2017 so far

Well, we are 13 days into 2017 and I am FINALLY feeling almost healthy again!  This cold/flu/whatever has really been hanging on. It's mainly just been my throat/voice, but I was also really congested for a while. Something funny/weird about Guinness is that he completely freaks out when I cough.. He doesn't freak out when Kevin coughs, but he really panics when I do.  That usually isn't a problem, but when I have a weeks-long cough, it becomes a big problem! He tries to either climb into my lap or into Kevin's lap, and it isn't usually gentle! I got a picture of him sitting on Kevin after I coughed:

Kevin had to quickly move his laptop so Guinness didn't sit on it... 

And now Kevin's comforting poor panicked Guinness (all because I coughed...)

As a result of this stupid illness, we had a VERY low-key New Year's Eve and barely made it til midnight (but we did!), and the next day I was not feeling well enough to go into the city for the parade. Kevin didn't want to go to the parade without me, so we stayed home on New Year's Day for the first time in 4 or 5 years. We had a leisurely day of watching movies and just hanging out at home, and Kevin kept a nice warm fire going in our fireplace all day.

Those are all of our Christmas cards above our fireplace! 

We also had our first decent snow of the winter last weekend! We got a few inches last Thursday, and then on Saturday we also got about 3 inches. Guinness looooooved playing in the snow in our yard!  He loves the snow. But yesterday it was 60 degrees (whaaaat?!) so all of the snow has melted and everything is just super muddy now. This is such a weird winter so far. They're saying we might get more snow this weekend even though yesterday was 60 degrees.

Catching a frisbee!

Guinness feeling playful and trying to keep the frisbee away from Kevin. 

Running back after a successful catch! 

Our cute pup

A different day

Action (blurry) shot! Guinness is catching the frisbee

Happy boy!

I'm not sure how many of you follow football, but I think most of my friends/family know that I'm a big Chargers fan... so yesterday was a sad, sad day for me. The Chargers announced yesterday that they're officially moving to Los Angeles. So... I'm pretty bummed about that. It's such a dumb decision... They definitely should have stayed in San Diego, and I feel like it's a big middle finger to their fans. I can't be a fan of a Los Angeles team... I just can't do it. So, I think me and the Chargers have to break-up. So, if you need me for the next week I'll be in my pajamas eating ice cream out of a carton while watching break-up movies in the dark (but these will be football movies instead of the usual break-up movies). Sigh... And then I'll have to eventually find a new football team to be a fan of. Eagles? Niners?  It's too soon to think about.

I'm going to try not to dwell on that, because there are obviously MUCH more important things going on in our country right now.  I won't turn this post into anything political, but let's just say I'm feeling incredibly stressed, angry, sad, and anxious for what's to come for our country. So, that's definitely way more important than my Chargers.

I hope everyone is doing great, and I hope everything is going well for everyone. In case you need some feel-good movies (I know I've been needing them!), one movie I would definitely recommend is La La Land. That's a hopeful, happy kind of movie, and I really enjoyed it (and I KNOW it's going to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, so that's already one off my list since I try to see those movies before the Oscars!). We also just watched Zootopia last night (it's free on Netflix!), and it was super cute. So, there's a few happy movies, just in case anyone else is needing them right now!  I love you all!