2016 Blog in Review

Happy New Years Eve eve!!  Here is our annual recap of the year, according to the blog:

I managed to find a selfie from every month!

January

In January we became obsessed with watching The Americans, I talked about birth songs, and we enjoyed a mega blizzard.

February

In February we made the blog private for awhile, hosted a Super Bowl party, heart attacked our wall, endured a sub-zero arctic freeze, and had our annual stay-cation overnight trip.

March

In March we celebrated our 18 month anniversary, re-capped our winter bucket list, saw Blue Man Group, and helped with an Easter egg hunt.

April

In April we found a new apartment, became addicted to watching The Walking Dead, took a mini trip to Philadelphia, and nearly died on an epic hike.

May

In May Dan started his sabbatical, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and we had fun exploring Washington D.C. in the spring.

June

In June we moved into our apartment and it was a crazy busy and crazy emotional month. We headed to Colorado and it was Dan's first time to see my childhood home and his first time fly-fishing with my Dad. It was an all-time low for blogging that month. Only 4 posts!

July

In July we were in Kansas to celebrate Dan's birthday and the 4th of July. It was my first time experiencing Kansas fireworks. We also did a choose-your-own-adventure birthday for Dan and saw Wicked on Broadway. And we spent a blissful day at the beach.

August

In August, Mandy came to visit and we celebrated our 30th birthday together. We enjoyed an epic Broadway weekend with my friend Stephanie, and we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary.

September

In September we took our anniversary trip to Atlantic City, we saw Cats on Broadway, and took a few bike rides. 

October

In October we headed to Kansas to celebrate Sam and Lauren's wedding and then we spent the rest of the month checking off fun fall adventures. We picked pumpkins and solved a corn maze, saw a million carved pumpkins at Rise of the Jack-o-lanterns, and we won a Halloween costume contest.

November

In November we watched the NYC marathon outside our apartment, went ice skating, saw School of Rock, Something Rotten, and Matilda on Broadway, and we hosted Thanksgiving at our apartment with my family.

December

In December we filled our holiday cheer quota by seeing the Dyker Christmas lights, exploring lots of light displays in Midtown, and saw Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, I shared my favorite Christmas songs, and we celebrated Christmas in Kansas.

I think the world can agree that 2017 can't get here soon enough, as if one flip of the calendar could make everything better? But, I am excited for 2017. We have much to be hopeful for in this new year.

Thanks to each and every one of you who stuck with us this year and followed along with our blog. We are glad for your company. Love and hugs from Dan and Steph.

2015 Blog in Review
2014 Blog in Review

Christmas wrap-up

I'm sharing our Trip Favorites from our Kansas Christmas

1) Favorite thing you ate
2) Favorite thing you did
3) Favorite thing you got

Dan:
- Ate: Sam's smoked brisket and pulled pork
- Did: Playing 5 Second Rule game
- Got: Star Wars trilogy DVD set

Steph:
- Ate: Sam's smoked brisket
- Did: Day-venture to see Fort Scott and Safari museum
- Got: My hedgehog Pandora bracelet charm

We got back from Kansas on Monday but I took Tuesday as a vacation day as well so we could unpack, go to the store, and settled back into routine. Best idea ever!! We had a little mini belated Christmas morning in Brooklyn. I think we might try to make this tradition.

We got to sleep-in and I made us extremely ugly but tasty Christmas tree pancakes for breakfast.

Then we opened our presents from my family which we managed to save until after Christmas.

We got lots of great stuff and relaxed, played games, and watched movies the rest of the day. I made crock-pot macaroni and cheese for dinner with baked drummies. Yum!

I like to keep the Christmas decorations up until New Years eve just to soak-in the cheer for a bit longer. It's always hard to pack it away the day after.

Come back tomorrow for our 2016 blog in review!

Kansas Christmas

On Monday we returned from our visit to Kansas for Christmas. Since we got engaged, we've traded holidays with our families. One year we do Christmas in Kansas with Dan's family and the next year we do Christmas with my family wherever it's being hosted that year. Since we had Thanksgiving with my parents and sisters this year, we did Christmas in the Midwest. The last time we had Christmas in Kansas was 2014, our first Christmas married! See that back here.

This year we did our typical Kansas trip traditions. We went to lunch and headed to the outlet mall. Terri Mom got Dan a pair of new sneakers and I got a pair of boots as part of our Christmas presents. Then we went to heaven on earth (aka Hobby Lobby) and Walmart. Both luxuries we don't get to enjoy in the city. Then we went home to play with Baby!

And admire all the Christmas decorations Terri Mom put around the house.

On Thursday Dan and I had a day-venture around the Kansas country. We went to Fort Scott to get our National Parks passport stamped and walked around the grounds. It was way better than I expected. Well done small town Kansas.

Then we went over to Chanute to see the Safari Museum (number one rated museum in all of Kansas). Again, very well done. We also visited Aunt Kandi at the library too.

Then we went over to Iola to the Russell Stover factory store. I loved it there. So many choices and it smelled so yummy. Dan hated it.

That night we met-up with friends Jeff and Cheryl and we had the most delicious Mexican food. They surprised us by inviting another couple, one of Dan's other friends from high school and his wife. It was a really nice evening.

The next morning (Christmas Eve eve) we opened presents as a family. Sam and Lauren had come down the night before and we opened presents and stockings all together.

Terri Mom got us all stick-on mustaches and super fun stocking stuffers including loads of candy.

That afternoon Dan and I went over to Grandma Wilson's house and made Christmas cookies with Terri Mom, Aunt Judy, and Kourtney. We also played Aunt Judy's new game "5 Second Rule" which was hysterical.

On Christmas Eve day Dan and I finished decorating the cookies and worked on a puzzle.

That night we all went to Kansas City to have dinner at Sam and Lauren's house. Sam made the most amazing smoked brisket and pulled pork. Lauren's family was there as well and they pulled us Johnson's into their Christmas eve tradition of lighting candles and reading the Christmas story. It was really sweet. I'm sad I didn't get a picture.

On Christmas day we went back to Grandma's house and spent the day with Dan's extended family. I love it there because it has such a warm and cozy spirit and there is great food and good company. It reminds me of when I was a kid and we would go visit my Dad's family in Iowa. A very Midwestern comfort feeling.

After the little kids opened their presents, all the adults did a white elephant gift exchange. The first gift I opened was an oil wrench. It weighed a ton and I had no idea what it was. Fortunately Allen Dad stole it from me (he really did want it) so I stole a Scentsy wax melter from Kaleigh who ended up with a box of stuffed emoji pillows. Dan got a small remote control indoor helicopter toy.

The day after Christmas we headed back to New York with suitcases stuffed with goodies, full bellies, and full hearts. We always have a great time in Kansas and Christmas is no exception. 

Tomorrow I'll share our Trip Favorites and other Christmas highlights.

Christmas Songs Round-up 2

Last week I shared my all-time favorite Christmas jams. Today, I'm listing out some of my other favorites. I have so many more that I love but it is so hard to narrow them down and I'm sure I'm forgetting some true loves.

In no particular order

I Need a Silent Night by Amy Grant

Joseph's Lullaby by MercyMe

That's Christmas to Me by Panatonix

Heirlooms by Amy Grant

Come and Worship by Bebo Norman

Where Are You Christmas by Faith Hill (from The Grinch movie)

Precious Moments by Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
This is from Home Alone when he is at the church 

A Baby Changes Everything by Faith Hill

The Heart of Christmas by Matthew West

Bless Us All from The Muppet Christmas Carol
Ohh, Tiny Tim coughing at the end!!

Heaven Everywhere by Francesca Battistelli 

Circle of Love by Jennifer Nettles
This one is familiar from Dolly Parton's Christmas movie this year Coat of Many Colors Circle of Love

For the upbeat and playful tune lovers enjoy these:

Welcome Christmas by the Cast of Glee

What Christmas Means to Me by Hanson
Oh the 90s. We loved this song because of the line, "though I love you Mandy! Seems that I love you more..."

Candy Cane Lane by Point of Grace 
I don't particularly enjoy the Candy Cane Lane song but it's one of Mandy's favorites and she choreographed a little dance to go with it and because I love her I'm adding it here.

Merry Almost Christmas!!!!

Weekending it

Can you believe Christmas is less than a week away? December is disappearing so quickly.

On Saturday we got the first real snow fall of the season, about 3 inches, and Dan and I slept through the whole thing. By the time we left the apartment in the afternoon everything was gray slush. Yesterday it was close to 60 degrees and today it feels like 18 degrees. It's going to be a long winter.

On Saturday evening we went over to New Jersey for cousin Kaleigh & Kourtney's Christmas party. We were, of course, the first people there but it was nice to get to chat with them for a good hour before any other guests arrived! Dan and I are not super great at mingling with strangers but we were both pleasantly surprised by how friendly and engaging all of their friends were and we had a really great time. I only snapped a few pictures. Their cute Christmas tree.

The awesome light fixtures they have that cast really cool shadows

And the adorable dog that was at the party (he got overwhelmed so they put him back in his case). He was so cute.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning. We've been visiting a church in downtown Brooklyn for the last few weeks and we are really enjoying it so far. Afterwards we hung around the area until the late afternoon when we met up with friends to attend the Brooklyn Tabernacle Joy of Christmas show. The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir is really famous and every year they have a free Christmas show. Neither Dan or I had seen them perform and we were glad to be invited by friends. We got there an hour early and had to stand in a long line that wrapped around the corner but we got pretty good seats in the balcony.

It was a really great show with a solid message but ended up being longer than we expected. Still a fun time.

Now we just have two more days of work before we leave for a Kansas Christmas!

One last thing, in Friday's post I mentioned that Dan and I put our New Years wishes on confetti in Times Square. I just realized you can submit your wishes virtually and they will drop those on New Years too. Try it here!

Peeks from the Week

We've had an extremely busy but fun and festive week. This time of year always fills up so quickly with events but that makes for a hearty Peeks post.

I shared on Wednesday that Dan and I had a fun night in the city on Tuesday. Before we saw the Rockefeller tree and Saks light display, we were in Times Square to check out the wishing spot.

I don't think this a new thing but I had never heard of it before this year. You can write your New Year's wishes on pieces of confetti which they drop in Times Square on New Years Eve. Isn't that awesome?? Imagine your wish floating over Times Square!!

There was no line so we grabbed two pieces of confetti and wrote down our wishes for 2017.

But we can't show you our wishes otherwise they won't come true!

Earlier we had stopped by the box office for Fiddler on the Roof.  The show closes at the end of the month and I wanted to see it before it left (and I needed to see one more show before the end of the year). We'd been planning to get rush tickets some day but now that the cold weather has settled into our area we weren't really hopeful that we could stand outside for two hours. I checked the theater website and it said they had $47 tickets for the back row which was a price we were willing to pay. But rather than buy the tickets online with the added $20 fees, we always go to the box office to get the tickets for face value. See my Broadway on the cheap tips here. Well it turned out the box office had $35 mezzanine tickets (same price as the rush seats) and we got two for Wednesday night!

So we ended up having two nights in the city. Turns out the $35 tickets were awesome seats, we weren't even in the back row and the theater was huge and pretty empty (no one in front of us) so we could see everything. I checked the ticket site afterwards for the listed price of the seats we got and it was $103! It pays to go to the box office! The show was great but I can see why it is closing. The theater had a ton of empty seats and they weren't even using the back third of the mezzanine level. It's a classic show but it has a serious plot so I imagine most people would rather see something lively and fun when they go to the theater (at least that's my preference). But nonetheless the show was wonderful with talented actors and actresses and great music. I'm glad we saw it. I wouldn't say it was one of my favorites but I did enjoy it. The show was three hours long so we didn't get home until midnight. Eek!

Oh and I forgot to mention that over the weekend we spent all day Saturday babysitting our little friends E&K while their mom got some alone time to study for her finals. We hung out with them for over eight hours! We had bought a gingerbread house for them to decorate and I assembled it while Dan played video games with E and K got her fill of Frozen YouTube videos.

Once the house was all put together and ready to decorate, they were only interested in the activity for about 2 minutes...so I ended up decorating most of it by myself. Oh well.

And now it's Friday again! I have my office holiday party tonight and tomorrow I'm hoping to sleep away the day. It is SO COLD here now, like February cold. Okay, so it's not that bad compared to Chicago or the arctic but it's still bitter. 

HAPPY FRIDAY!!