2009 Rewind: New Years Eve/Day

The morning that we left Phoenix, we had to be at the airport at 0630 in order to shuttle in and return our rental car.  We flew all day and lost 2 hours due to the time zones.  Then we landed at Dulles Airport in VA, drove 2 hours back to Annapolis in rush hour traffic, and finally got home.  We THEN decided that we should leave for Florida right away, so we did a quick load of laundry, repacked the car (including the Carbide) and started driving.  That was pretty stupid-we were very tired.  But we made it in once piece and were happy to have a few hours jump start on when we were going to have left!

We went down there to visit my dad and step mom.  I have never visited him- and only recently met her.  We didn't speak for years and are just now working to rebuild our relationship.  He was very happy to have us, and we were happy to be there.

My dad is a very bad influence on little Carbide, and (much like Erin) likes to encourage him to do things that he isn't allowed to do (such as get on the furniture).  Bad dog!

My dad loves German Shephards, and has one named Gema.  She is pretty cool and mostly likes to lay on the couch and swim in the pool-although I wouldn't mess with her.  Jaimie also loves German Shephards (which is unfortunate, since they are one of my two least favorite breeds).  I thought that these two pictures of Jaimie and Gema were funny-at first he is very quizzical look on his face and she looks very serious-and then she licks him and they seem to be getting on just fine after that!  I think that she is very beautiful.

For Christmas, the only thing that I could think of that I really "needed" was "big girl clothes" since from the looks of things, I won't be in the Navy for much longer.  My dad took me clothes shopping and bought a few nice professional outfits for me.  Then we went to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch-which is one of the best restaurants on the earth.

I wanted to knit something for my dad for Christmas- but he lives in Florida and works in Texas.  So I obviously couldn't knit a sweater or a scarf or hat (I don't think he would wear a scarf or hat nomatter where he lived).  I thought about it a lot and finally decided that socks were the way to go.  Argyle socks.  In shades of blue, which is his favorite color.  He also loves sailing, so I tried to keep the names of the colors in a nautical theme.  One blue is called "Deep Water" and the other is called "Caribbean Blue".  The third blue (the super pale one that I used to make the X's) is called "Blue Haze".  Even though it dosn't have an "oceany" name, I thought it would be acceptable since his favorite musician of all times is Jimmi Hendrix (who else?!) and he wrote a famous song called Purple Haze.  This might sound a little 'out there', but when I told him about it, he got it, and that is the important thing. :)

We had a really fun time on our visit and look forward to many more trips and most of all to repairing our broken relationship-and maybe even building a new one.

2009 Rewind: Christmas for Real

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent Christmas with Jaimie's family in Phoenix, AZ.  The weather was much warmer than I am used to for Christmas- but MUCH colder than weather.com promised!  I brought short sleeved shirts and skirts.  It was 40 degrees.  I was so flippin' cold! 

But Phoenix is really beautiful.  You are in a valley surrounded by amazing black topped mountains.  When I take a picture of it and look at it, even I don't think that it looks real.  It all looks photoshopped.  God has blessed us with so much variety in nature! 

It was especially wonderful to get to spend time with Jaimie's mother and sister.  They are both cool cats, and I know that they miss him as much as he misses them.  We stayed at their house and spent a lot of time chatting and catching up about life.  I cooked almost every meal-including a Litchfield family tradition; "Eggs Litchfield" for Christmas morning breakfast.  Everyone really loved it-but I think that is only because they haven't ever had my mom's.  Since I grew up eating my mom's Eggs Litchfield, I wasn't very impressed with what I came up with-but then again, I guess she has had a few extra years of practice. :)

This is just one of the extremely cute children in Jaimie's family.

Jaimie and his mother and sister, myself, and his sister Cayla's then boyfriend, Jason.

Believe it or not- this is just over half of the Clark family.  They are a fertile bunch!

I'm not sure what we will do next year for Christmas, but this visit to Phoenix was really fun.  And most importantly, I know that it meant a lot to Jaimie and his mother that he was there.  He hasn't been home in many, many years for Christmas.  We really want closeness with family to be a value that we instill in our own children, so we are making sure to be strong in that area ourselves before we go creating any spawns. :)

2009 Rewind- "Christmas"

Jaimie and I decided to visit his family in Phoenix, AZ this year for Christmas.  It was the fair thing to do since we went to my family's the year before.  And even though I was the one who suggested the idea-as the weather began to change and Christmas was approaching, I found myself really bummed out that we would be in for such hot weather on Christmas! 

I have never been in the south for Christmas before.  Being from Rhode Island, we often had a White Christmas.  Then I spent 6 years in Ohio, and 4 of them I returned to my homeland. :)  I have had 27 very cold and usually snowy Christmases.

So rather than bring all of our gifts for eachother all the way to Arizona, we decided to celebrate "our Christmas" the weekend prior.  And I think that God was listening to my prayers-because we got 2.5 feet of snow here in Maryland!  It. Was. Awesome!  Carbide played in the snow and Jaimie and I drank cocoa, started a fire in the fireplace, and looked out the window at the beautiful falling snow.  It ended up being a really special day-and the best part was that it was just the two of us.  Err... the four of us actually.  Carbide and Mischief were very much involved. :)

Here is our "official" 2009 Christmas Picture.

I decided to knit Jaimie a Christmas stocking.  Then I also decided to spin the yarn to make it!  This wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't BRAND NEW to spinning, and if I didn't have this "brilliant idea" smack dab in the middle of December.  He is a huge Ohio State fan (Go Bucks!), so I decided to make it in OSU colors. 

Why is it so ugly and deformed, you ask?  Well that is because as I was knitting the foot, I forgot to do the shaping which WOULD HAVE tapered it in.  I think this is because I have never knit a stocking before and have only knit socks-who knows.  By the time I realized what I had done, it was 1:30 on our "Christmas Eve" and the hubbs and I were both really tired.  He begged me to come to bed with him, but I was being really stubborn about finishing the damn stocking.  Then it hit me-Christmas isn't about perfection.  It itsn't even about stockings.  It is about the birth of Christ.  And as much as I really wanted to make everything perfect for our Christmas celebration-I realized that it was more important to make my husband happy.  As a newlywed, I am still learning what that looks like.  It seems that he values time together, cuddling in bed higher than he does perfectly knit Christmas stockings.  Go figure.  Men are so complex!  It is only because I learned this important lesson that I even posted a picture of this ugly stocking.  Hopefully I will have it finished and looking great for him by next year.

This is the AWESOME stocking that he gave to me.  I love it.  I have never seen a cooler stocking in all of my life! :)

We had a wonderful little "Christmas Breakfast".  Trader Joes carries this gorgonzola cheese covered in dried cranberries and walnuts.  It is amazing.  They also have some fantastic assorted crackers.  We love them-so that was what we ate while exchanging gifts.  We also have these awesome coffee cups which were a gift from Elyssa.  They say "Paris" on them (she knows how fondly we remember our trip to Paris together) and they fit together and share a saucer.  They are the best coffee cups on the planet.  I know.  I have checked. 

 I love Christmas mornings with Jaimie.  My parents were always pretty good about not rushing the festivities-you know it takes so long to think of thoughtful gifts for everyone and save up money to buy them, then wrap them-it is such a shame to rush.  I haven't had a Christmas with my Dad since my parents got divorced when I was 19, but things seem a little more hurried at my mom's house at Christmas these days.  So last year, though we really enjoyed getting to see my family, we were a little bummed out that Christmas morning was so rushed.  When it is just the two of us, we don't rush at all.  We take all day!  And we dont' even buy that many presents-but we just feel free to take breaks to have a snack or watch a movie (if we just got one) or play with our new toys/whatever.  Or just to make out.  Mmmm.  I just love Christmas with Jaimie.  It seemed like it had lost so much of the magic when I grew up-like it would never be as incredible as it was when I was a little kid.  But I really do feel like a little girl on Christmas morning when we are sharing the day.

Jaimie showing off his two favorite gifts- his new ipod (we have never had them before-so he is super pumped!  Also I got a "K-bar" knife for him.  It is called a "tac tool" and he was really excited about it.  I am a really good bargain hunter-not as good as Erin, but still pretty good!

Carbide was really happy that he got presents also.  His birthday is December 19th, so he sometimes gets frustrated that people try to "combine" the holidays.  But he definitely came to the right family!  Since Erin's birthday is Deceber 21st, I know all about this Sagittarian delimma.  We make sure to acknowledge his birthday AND Christmas.  Here he is with his scorpion from his Nana. 

And poor little Mischief.  He loves to play with balls with bells in them, but he always loses them after 15 seconds.  Jaimie tied some bells to a length of yarn, and that seems to be working much better.  For now.

2009 Rewind- Thanksgiving

Since my sister Erin has peer pressured me to fix my blog- here we go.

The hubbs and I went up to Boston for Thanksgiving.  Erin twisted my arm (not) to get me to go see New Moon with her (for her second time) and we had a nice time- until everyone kept getting nervous when they looked at me afterwards because they thought I looked like the "Volturi" since my eyes were still red and icky looking from the Lasik.  Wha wha.

The littlest nugget-Elyssa- has a snake named Oliver.  I like to call "her" Olivia to annoy her.  This snake is really weird and refuses to peel himself like he is supposed to.  Here are some glamour shots of him.

Meanwhile, Erin was rolling around on the floor with Carbide.  So strange.

On Thanksgiving, in addition to my sister Elyssa, her boyfriend Dean and his parents and friend Elvis were also there.  We had a nice time hanging out and discussing Alpacas.  (Dean's parents have a farm!  Super sweet!)

Mom and Dom, and their doggie, Jack.

The hubbs and I, and our little nugget, Carbide.

Elyssa and Dean (and Jack)

Dean and Elvis

Erin and her new hubby, Mike.

Erin is the only human that Carbide tries to mate with.  I think it is because she crawls around on the floor with him in her "play clothes".  He wants to marry her.  I told him that she is taken.  He is bummed.

Erin's "Twilight Bella Mittens".  This is her pretending to be Bella and being awkward with a car.

Here, I am posing with Oliver.  I was a little intimidated by him at first (being a snake and all) but I'll tell ya what- a few Grey Goose and pineapple juices and my inhibitions went away, and I let the thing ride around on my neck.  (I can't believe that Elyssa went for that)!

After Thanksgiving at our mom's house, Erin invited Jaimie and I over to her and Mike's apartment (or their "treehouse" as she likes to call it!) to hang out.  They know that clam chowder is my favorite food, so they went out the day before and bought a gallon of it.  Literally.  I was in heaven.  You would think that I wouldn't have been able to eat any more after that HUGE thanksgiving dinner that my mom made-but somehow I found the space to go off on a whole pint of chowder!  It was awesome.

While we were there, I taught Erin how to knit.  She is making twin baby blankets for the twins that her friend is having.  She did an awesome job with the knitting, and I was really impressed!  Meanwhile, Jaimie and Mike played all sorts of video games.  I always mix up which system it was on, but they played some games where you get to kill zombies and also where you are in the military and are out on missions.  Jaimie loved every second of it, and it made me happy to see him relax a bit.

Thanks, Erin! (Wha wha)

So I have had this blog since September of last year-without a single follower-which was fine for me because it served as more of a personal diary and a record of my knitting projects than anything else.  When the holidays came, I got super lazy about updating this thing and really haven't done it in a while. 

Over the weekend, my younger sister Erin joined the blogging world, already has 15 followers, and referred everyone over to my blog!  That is why I am posting this message-if anyone actually comes to my page and sees that i haven't updated the thing in months-this is to let you know that I will be updating it soon.  I have many more knitting projects (one of which was for Erin-her Twilight mittens) to post pictures of, as well as general holiday stuff.

So thank you for stopping by!  I'll try to get something interesting for you to read soon!

Love,
Erika

Not a lot of kitting going on here!

This week was very unproductive with the knitting!  I had Lasik surgery on my eyes on Thursday, which made me pretty useless all day Thursday and most of Friday. 

Then-on Friday night, our friends Rene' and Tim from Columbus came out for a visit!  It was so great to see them and we were really touched that they made the drive!  Their visit was supposed to be a surprise, but when the hubbs mentioned their names for an unrelated reason, a picture of them in their Ohio State jerseys in downtown D.C. next to the monuments flashed in my mind.  Saturday was the big OSU vs. Michigan game.  BUSTED!  The hubbs should know by now that he can't surprise me, and if he so much as THINKS about the surprise in the same room as me, I will figure it out! 

We had a great time down in D.C. checking out the monuments and then up in Annapolis.  We ate some seafood on the dock and watched the ships go by.  We got some coffee in the coolest Starbucks ever-the one in the basement of the Maryland Inn.  Then-back to the apartment for some beer and conversation.  What a fun time!

Jaimie was VERY proud of his parallel parking!

The women whose pictures were etched into the Korean War memorial.  It was so touching to see them acknowledged!

Honest Abe- he's even bigger than the history books say!

This monument is a tribute to the women who fought in Vietnam.  Most of them were nurses who cared for our wounded soldiers.  This monument was completed in 1994, and the sign explaining it says that 'now the Vietnam memorial is complete".  I think that's cool.  These were the women who really paved the way for my generation of soldiers-though their bravery so far outshines my own that I hesitate to put myself in the same category.

WWII Memorial.

I DID actually get SOME stuff done this week. Here is the beginning of the sweater I am making for my mother for "Christmas"-which she probably won't get until Mother's day!

And here is the gray yarn which I just completed this evening.  I will use it with the red yarn from last week to knit a OSU Christmas stocking for the hubbs. :)