“I just like to smile, smiling’s my favourite.”

So apparently both Christmas and New Years have come and gone.  When did that happen?  The older I get, the more the holiday season seems to just fly by.  Boo to that.

Well, a couple things to update you on I guess. To start, I totally made a Christmas wreath this year.  Yay!  It was one of my not-completed things on last year’s list.  Turned out pretty well I think.

Steps to make the wreath. Plus showing you how distracting Parker can be!

Actually pretty simple, though VERY VERY time consuming.  I think it would have been easier had I found a styrofoamy wreath base that I wanted to use,but alas  none that were the right size were for sale at Michaels, so I used a flat one.  Which totally added more work.  The longest part of the wreath was definitely wrapping the yarn around and around the base until it was covered.   IT took forever!   Turned out ok though.  And now we have it forever! (Though I will probably attempt a better one next year.  haha)

Oh also, we (or I mean I) put out another annual Christmas card!  Sadly it was almost a no go, as a couple weeks before Christmas we were forced to put down Foster :(.  Definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I know Matt feels the same.  I won’t go into details, but he was in pain, and it was the right thing to do.  So RIP Foster.  We didn’t want to leave him out of the card so he made an angelic appearance.

I also completed (although barely) my 2nd boxing day 10 miler (That’s 16km)!  Eileen and I cut 10 minutes off our time from last year, which was our goal, so that was exciting.  One of my friends from University- Tom, ran by us while we were walking which was pretty hilarious.  AND I’m very proud to say that he came in like 51st place (or around there).  Go Tom!!! 🙂  (PS we came in at 2hrs 42 minutes….walking.  We were booting it!)

Ok that might be it for today.

Hope everyone had a great holiday! 🙂

❤ Erin

PS Is it wrong to still watch Christmas movies after Christmas?!

Post-Christmas Shenanigans

Yo.

So I’ve been in Hamilton the last 4 days (finally home today!), and boy have I been busy.

On boxing day, Kathy, her mom Eileen and I participated in the Hamilton YMCA 10 mile Boxing Day Run.  ….don’t be crazy!  Of course I didn’t run it!  There is a walking start, so we walked 10 miles.  If you’re not sure how far 10 miles is , it’s 16 km.  IF you’re really not sure how far that is, well we walked at a FAST pace for 2 hours and 52 minutes.  Like I mean fast.  Sore muscles were had by all, one of us is now wrapping their ankle, and taking pain meds, and I am hearing my hip click every once in a while, which is probably good news.  I would totally do it next year.  BUT I will invest in proper “running” type clothing, as the 7 layers of clothing I wore did not keep me from having  hot and cold flashes, and lets face it, we looked like friggen 3 year old kids all bundled up in snowsuits…you know what I’m talking about- those kids who can’t lower their arms because they have so many layers on!?  Anywho, we looked ridiculous.  Everyone had like spandexy pants, and cool coats, and running belts with water bottles in them.  I want to look like I know what I’m doing you know?  And fleece sweat pants, massive vests, and scarves didn’t exactly scream experienced walkers now did it?  You live you learn.

We did get medals, and we did “finish” the “race”.  Which was our goal.  AND we finished with 7 minutes to spare!  (The finish gate was to be taken down exactly 3 hours after the start time.)  AND let me tell you we did not finish last!  There were definitely walkers and runners still behind us.

the crazy 16km route!

The day after our lovely holiday walk was spent mostly sleeping.  Seriously.  I got up at 930, went back to bed, and was woken up at 2pm by Eileen who was concerned that I wouldn’t sleep that night if I didn’t get up.  haha.

Oh, we also saw The Fighter, which wasn’t our first choice… we had gone to see The King’s Speech, but that was sold out, so we saw The Fighter, and it was AWESOME!  Sooooooooooooooo super good.  Christain Bale is friggen amazing, and should definitely win an Oscar for this role!  Marky Mark wasn’t so bad to look at either. 😛  Amy Adams I’ve decided is also a way better actress than I gave her credit for.  See ya later Rom Coms, hello Academy Awards!

Oh, and last night we had a games night which began with Family Feud on the Wii- hilarious and awesome all at once!  For real.  THEN the party split into 3 sections…1. a group of four began playing Euchre (always a great idea!), 2. another group of 4 began playing Shawn White (is that how you spell it?) snowboarding on the Wii, and 3. my group began playing Scribblish.  Do you all know what Scribblish is?  It is honestly the funniest game I have ever played.  It’s kind of like telephone but with pictures!  So everyone starts off with a caption (That you keep secret), then you draw that caption, and roll up the paper so no one can see it.  Then you trade with someone, and they look at your picture only, and try to write a caption of what they think you drew.  The next person just looks at their caption, and tries to draw their caption, then the next person writes a new caption…etc, etc. Anywho it’s like 6 or 7 switches in a round, and it turns out to be super funny when you unroll each paper with captions and pictures.  For example- one caption I had was “Bats in the attic, hippos in the basement.”  That somehow turned into “Bat crapping out a bear.”  Anyways, you gotta try it….and I guess you had to be there last night to think that last example was funny.  Whatev.  I was there and it was funny.  So funny I almost peed my pants twice.

It's by the makers of Cranium- how could it not be great!?

Our fun games night ended with another game called Blockus which I will not describe…but just say that it’s like Tetris in a board game.  Fun.   AND also everyone taking turns playing 4 player Super Mario brothers for Wii.  That is ridiculously awesome.  Especially when you pick other players up and throw them off cliffs.  Eh Joe?  (PS those other players are actually working with you on the same team, not against you! :P)

Ok, super long post, thought I should do one since people are on holidays, and some of you might want some fab reading material.  And I don’t mean the new Stephen King novel.

Oh, our wedding photographer emailed me to say the pics will be done super soon, so yayayayayayayaya!!!!  Can’t wait!  Also, I found some pics of another wedding project that Matt did (he took pictures for me so I could blog about it!).  I will post that later this week…maybe we’ll have a “Wedding Saturday”.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye.  I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.  do do do do do do do do do do do do do dooooooooo.

(Did I mention we finished off boxing day by watching (and singing along with(obv.)) The Sound of Music?!)(Well we did.)