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!