February recap

Hey guys!  I didn't post at all in February so I wanted to make sure to get in a post before March was over!  I'll do a separate post about March.  Our February was pretty uneventful except for a whole lot of Winter weather, and Valentine's Day.  This Winter was insaaaaane, and we had so much snow.  And it was so cold for so long that the snow really just stuck around for a super long time.  Usually it'll kinda melt and go away, but it just stayed and stayed.  There are many yards in our neighborhood that still have a bit of snow.  Here are some pictures from our Winter weather in February, and then I'll talk about our Valentine's Day! 

Look at how deep the snow is!  Guinness was having trouble running in it to play frisbee. 

But, he thought it was SUPER fun to dig in the snow and bury his frisbee! 

Here he is on a different day running for a frisbee!  Look at that focus! 

Leaping to catch a frisbee! 

Jumping up to try to catch a snowball! Look at how deep the snow is! 

He was loving the snowballs! 

Look at all of these crazy icicles!  They were all over our house, and some were HUGE!

And now for our Valentine's Day!  We wanted to get out of the house but still be super safe, so we drove to Hershey, PA to Troegs Brewery because they have been GREAT about curbside pickup, and they had some really great Valentine's Day specials.  So, we drove there and picked up our curbside order, and then we drove to a picnic area to eat it!  It was FREEZING on Valentine's Day (the high was in the 20s), so we ate pretty fast, but it was still really fun!  And then we drove back home and watched The Thing (the 1982 version OF COURSE.  It's so amazing). 

It was braised short ribs, cheesy polenta, and roasted parsnips. It was SO delicious! 

And we brought paper plates to eat on, and we split a beer!  It was freezing, but still lovely.

The Thing!  Kurt Russell just being amazing. If you haven't seen this movie, you should definitely watch it as soon as you possibly can.  

So, that was our February!  Tons of snow and winter weather all month, and we had some fun celebrating Valentine's Day.  I'll do another post very soon about our March, and also talk about some of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees because we're going to try to watch at least some of those!  I hope you've all been doing really well!  Talk to you soon! 

December and January Recap

 Hey guys!  Wow, I haven't posted anything since November... That might be a new record?  Or close to it anyways.  Our December was very busy for work, but we tried really hard to get into the Christmas spirit and have a nice month. It was definitely a weird Christmas, but we managed to still have some fun and talk to some family and see some family (over Zoom and FaceTime only - we didn't see anyone in person).  We watched all of the movies from my Christmas Bucket List, and we did the rest of the Bucket List too!!  So, all of that definitely helped our month feel more festive and "normal".  Here are some pictures from our December: 

Here were our decorations in our downstairs den!  The tree looks dark in the middle, but that's just something weird that happened in the photo!  I promise there were lights all over the whole tree :)

Another fun thing for our December was that we had a beer advent calendar (made by Kevin... He picked out 24 individual beers for each of us!  It was super fun), and we had a cheese advent calendar from Aldi too.  Beer and cheese every day til Christmas!  It was really awesome. Here are a few of them: 

Here was our living room tree!  We had a real tree upstairs in our living room, and an artificial tree downstairs in our den.  We've never had 2 trees before, but we figured that this year would be a good year to try it since we needed all the Christmas spirit we could get! :) 

And here are some of our living room decorations: 

In mid-December we got a pretty big snowstorm, and Guinness loved it!  I don't think we got any real snow last year (just some mild dustings), so he missed playing frisbee in the snow.  Here are some pictures of Guinness reunited with some snowy frisbee: 

And here's Guinness with a few of his Christmas presents: 

Here he is wearing his bowtie from Adriana!  And his lip got stuck on his teeth which always cracks me up, so he looks like he's smirking or embarrassed or something. 

And here he is with a Woodstock squeaky toy from Lindsey! 

And January has been a CRAZY month, and to be honest I'm glad it's almost over.  The one bright spot in January was Inauguration Day!!  That was a very happy day, and Kevin and I made sure to celebrate with a special bottle of champagne that we have been saving for many years.  We bought it many years ago, and we were going to drink this special bottle of champagne on our 5th Wedding Anniversary, but that was in June of this year and that was the day that we lost power due to the derecho storm.  I don't know if you remember from my blog post during that time but we actually were without power for like 4 or 5 days.  So... we did NOT drink the champagne on our 5th anniversary.  Haha :)  But, it was a great way to celebrate on Inauguration Day. 

So, that was pretty much our December and January!  Sorry it's been so long since I've posted... In December I was just really focused on enjoying it as much as possible, and trying to feel Christmas-y. And then January has just been overwhelming and crazy.  But, I will do better at writing updates!  We are getting a big ol' snowstorm right now, so I'll post some fun pictures of Guinness enjoying that.  And, our dear Guinness is turning 8 years old in just a few days!  Crazy :) 

It's almost December!!

 Hey you guys!!  Wow, I can't believe November is almost over!!  So crazy.  I am trying to get excited for Christmas, and I think it's working!  It's challenging this year with COVID causing so much stress and just changing everything, but we're trying really hard to enjoy this holiday season.  Like, LOTS of effort going into it.  Our Fall ended up going well, and I think we did most of the things on our Fall Bucket List from my last post!  We didn't end up buying pumpkins or gourds (so we also didn't carve the pumpkins or roast any pumpkin seeds), but I think we did everything else!  So, that's pretty good I think!  I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween and Thanksgiving!

Today we decorated our house for Christmas!  We'd started on it a week or so ago, and then yesterday morning we went to Home Depot early in the morning to get our tree from their outdoor garden center, and it was GREAT because we were literally the only people there shopping for our tree.  And then we got the tree all set up in the tree stand at home, and then just let it relax for a day before we tried to put lights on it and decorate it!  So, today we did all of that fun and our house is feeling very Christmas-y!  I'll take pictures and post those soon.  I have also been working on a pandemic-safe Christmas Bucket List, which is MOSTLY going to be movies.  I'll post that and the movie list below!  

We are also doing advent calendars this year, because that just seemed like a really great thing for this year so we have a little something exciting to look forward to every day to try to make December more fun.  I can't really do chocolate advent calendars nowadays because of my soy allergy, so we had to look for other options. We got cheese advent calendars from the grocery store (yay cheese!), and then we also wanted beer advent calendars, but that isn't really a thing here in PA (PA has VERY strange laws about alcohol... It's confusing and weird), so Kevin made beer advent calendars for us!!  He picked out 24 individual beers for us (a few places around here sell individual bottles so you can build a 6-pack, etc), and he's organizing them into an order that will be fun for December! I have no idea what any of the beers are, so they will all be a surprise to me :). So, both of those things will be starting on Tuesday and I am EXCITED (so my thought process for advent calendars has worked so far!). 

So, no pictures in this post (sorry!!), but my next post will have a LOT of pictures.  And below is my Christmas Bucket List and Movie List! 

Christmas Movie Bucket List - 2020

1. Elf
2. Mickey’s Christmas Carol
3. Muppet’s Christmas Carol
4. Frosty the Snowman
5. Rudolph
6. Santa Clause is Coming to Town
7. Year Without a Santa Clause
8. Christmas Vacation
9. Love Actually
10. The Grinch (old cartoon)
11. The Grinch (Jim Carrey)
12. The Grinch (new one)
13. Home Alone
14. Home Alone 2
15. Die Hard
16. Charlie Brown Christmas
17. White Christmas
18. Miracle on 34th Street (1947 version OF COURSE)
19. It’s a Wonderful Life
20. Prep & Landing 
21. Scrooged
22. A Christmas Story
23. The Christmas Chronicles
24. The Night Before
25. The Nightmare Before Christmas
26.  It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)

October is here!!

Hey guys!  Wow, I am SO happy October is here.  And not only is October here, but we're over halfway through it already!  October and November are my favorite months by far.  Fall weather is DEFINITELY here in PA!  Last night our temps dropped to the 30s!  So, we put our flannel sheets on our bed yesterday, and we started using our heater yesterday for the first time this season.  I can't believe Halloween is approaching so quickly!!  So, it is BEYOND time for me to share my Fall Bucket List!  It's highly modified this year because of COVID, because we're pretty much just staying home, and we won't be going to pumpkin patches, apple orchards, etc.  So, the list has a LOT more movies than it usually does! 

So, there it is!  So far I have decorated for Halloween, and I've had one Oktoberfest beer.  So, lots more things to do!  I have pictures of some of our Halloween decorations, so I'll post those below!  For our pumpkins, I think we're just going to get those at Trader Joes or something, because we just don't feel confident that the pumpkin patches and orchards around here are being safe in terms of social distancing, etc.  I still want to get pumpkins and carve them and roast the seeds though :) We haven't decided what we're going about trick-or-treaters this year either... We just aren't sure if there's a safe way for us to give out candy, or if we should just abandon it this year. We're kinda hoping for terrible weather so that the decision is made for us!  Haha :)

I hope you're all doing really well, and I hope that the lovely Fall weather is either already happening where you are or at least on its way very soon!!  

Fall-ish?

 Hey guys!  Wow, I haven't posted in like TWO months!!  That's a record I think... But honestly there just isn't much exciting stuff happening to post about.  And I figure you guys must be getting sick of just looking at pictures of Guinness and pictures of random nature-y stuff from our yard and neighborhood!  But, that's what this post will be... haha :). And I am also going to try to come up with a Fall Bucket List, and I'll post that in the next post, but it's going to be HIGHLY modified this year because of the pandemic.  We won't be doing orchards, pumpkin patches, etc.   So, the list will be a LOT of movies I think!  The weather has definitely been feeling pretty Fall-y lately, so we are loving that!  

So, here are pictures of Guinness and nature-y stuff from the past 2 months!  

We had a little groundhog in our backyard!!  So that was adorable. 

We've also seen a lot of deer in our yard and around our neighborhood while we're on walks with Guinness!!  Here are some pictures of the deer we've seen: 

A buck!  

A little baby deer!  Adorable.

And like a month ago I saw a cool praying mantis bug on the bush by our front door!  I saw some leaves moving so I started looking closely, and then I saw it!  Hopefully you can see it in these pictures! I zoomed in very close on the 2nd picture: 

Oh here's a non-naturey picture!  We went over to Kevin's parents' house for a social-distanced birthday party for Kevin's Sister Mo!  We all sat in the backyard, very far from each other.  

And, to end the post, here's a bunch of pictures of Guinness sleeping:  

I hope you guys are all doing great!  I'll work on that Fall Bucket List and get that posted soon.  Love you guys!  Take care, and stay healthy!