Welcome to Spamalot!

When we first moved out to Chicago Jason actually came alone. He moved out here and then I joined him after the summer. We tried to see each other every month at least. On one of my trips out to visit Jason I completely surprised him. He thought my brother was flying in to visit him and instead it was me. He was floored! It was a wonderful surprise. So on my next trip out he wanted to surprise me with something. He told me to dress nicely and that he had something planned. After he picked me up from the airport we went to a wonderful dinner and then he surprised me with tickets to the touring company show of Monty Python's Spamalot. It is a musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was hilarious. I had the CD but had never actually listened to it. Jason heard it before I did! We were both laughing hysterically throughout the whole show! That quickly became Jason's favorite Broadway musical.

Now almost 3 years later Spamalot is playing again in Chicago. As soon as Jason heard it was coming back he begged for us to get tickets and go see it again. I didn't think anything of it and went on with life...well last night Jason came home and said I found some cheap tickets for tomorrow night to see Spamalot. Soooooo....we are going to Spamalot tonight. We ended up with 4 tickets so we are going to try converting others to love the show as much as we do.

See you in Spamalot!

Happy "Wicked" Anniversary

7 years ago on January 4, 2002. Jason and I were married for time and all eternity. It was a great day but the best thing is that it gets better every day! I was reworking some of the adoption questions and one of them was “What is the best thing about being married?” I thought for a moment and found that there were so many things that I loved about being married to Jason. One thing I love is that I am always with my best friend. We have such an amazing friendship! I am so lucky to being married to such a kind, funny, loving, caring, and handsome husband!
This year for our anniversary we decided to take it easy (partly because it was on a Sunday). We decided not to do gifts for one another since we just had Christmas and got everything we wanted and needed then. Instead we just spent time with one another. It was wonderful! Then on Tuesday night we went downtown (Jason was already there so I just met him) to see the musical Wicked. They do a drawing every night before the show for $25 tickets on the front two rows. In addition they do a drawing for limited view tickets. So we put our names in the drawing and didn’t get pulled. Jason is such a friendly guy though that he talked to someone who had their name pulled and their friends name pulled and didn’t need 4 tickets so they let us use 2 of the tickets so we were able to see the show. It was wonderful! It was my second time watching the show but Jason’s first. We both loved it. Wicked has been playing in Chicago since before we moved out here and will finally end it’s run at the end of January and we were determined to see it together before it left. The only hard part about watching the show was that I got an itch to get back on stage. That always happens to me when I watch shows.
That was our anniversary in a nutshell!

Happy New Year

Ring in the New Year!

There is so much going on around New Years that we had a lot of decisions to make – such as “Where are we going to spend New Years Eve?” That was the major question and since we had just returned from a packed week of visiting family we decided to lay low and just have a few couples over for the night. Jason made some yummy chili and we ate them in bread bowls and then we had snacks galore! We played games, laughed, ate, laughed, celebrated and ended the night with a little more laughing. We had the Johnsons, Fergusons, and Steels over for the fun night. Some of the games had a twist to them and before long Rachel was sipping water like a cat, Andrea had to hold a spoon in her mouth and Rob was doing cheers for all of us. It was a relaxing yet fun night.
You would think that the story ends there but it doesn’t…we had a sleepover with the Johnsons! Rob and Tiff spent the night and we played until 5 in the morning. Then we slept in and had a wonderful breakfast. We spent 24 hours together and never got tired of one another. It was awesome. Tiff and Diana even had matching Christmas pajamas (thanks Tiff!). It was a full week of the Johnsons and we loved it.
Happy New Year!

Christmas Trip

A Christmas Trip

We had a special treat this Christmas – we were able to spend it with family members!!!! We flew out to Utah on Dec. 22 and came home on Dec. 27. It was a short visit but wonderful. It was the first time in 10 years that Jason’s parents had all their children and grandchildren together for Christmas – so it was pretty special. I was also able to see my sister’s family, my parents, and my little brother. To top it all off we were even able to see some of our friends from Utah and have a little party. It was a very busy week but absolutely wonderful.
We almost didn’t make it out of Chicago because of bad weather but with a little heavenly help we finally arrived in Salt Lake City at 12:30 am (our luggage got there sometime later that morning). The next morning we visited with family and did some last minute Christmas shopping. That night for Christmas Eve, Jason’s parents invited Diana’s family over for a big dinner of different types of soups. Of course we had to play a few games together. Then off to get ready for Santa’s big visit.
Christmas day was wonderful – we spent the morning with Diana’s family and had a big breakfast. Then we went to Jason’s parent’s home for a large lunch with a scrumptious smoked turkey. We visited with Jason’s grandma and enjoyed being with family all day long.
The next day Jason was able to go skiing! He loves to ski and can’t do much of it out in Chicago so he was thrilled to hit the slopes. Diana is not much of a skier so instead she went shopping with her mom and sister and had a blast. We finished the night off playing at Diana’s parent’s house with the whole family.
Our last full day soon approached and we had family pictures taken with all of Jason’s family. Jason’s niece Madison and I went to Home Depot to have our traditional Wrapping Paper Sword fight (it was a draw) and I bought her a hand buzzer (mistake!). Then we went out to lunch and finished the day off with a party with all of our Utah friends. So many of them came to say hi and catch up on old times. We played together until 3 in the morning! It was a blast – we miss our friends out there and it was great to see so many of them.
Sadly Sunday came too soon and it was time to go home. We went to church with both sets of parents and then said our goodbyes. Time flew by so fast and it was hard to leave those that we love so much. Our nieces and nephews are so adorable and so much fun to be with! It was wonderful to spend some one-on-one time with our parents and siblings also. We arrived home with no problems and had some wonderful memories to take with us.

Tis The Season

Tis the Season

I love Christmas time and the whole Christmas season. As a child I remember pulling out all the Christmas decorations as soon as Thanksgiving was over and decorating the whole house. It was wonderful! My mom loved to decorate for the season and I guess I learned that from her. I have boxes of Christmas decorations and I love it when I pull them out and start decorating the house. This year we were going to be spending Christmas in Utah and so I decided not to go all out on the decorations – I did a few but not the “normal” amount. I didn’t even put up a tree this year. We have a plant that is very tall and I put some bows and stuff on that and called it my tree. Although it wasn’t my normal decorating bonanza it was still beautiful and brought the Christmas spirit into our home.
Another tradition that I learned from my mom was making plates of treats to give to friends and neighbors. Every year I make some kind of treat to give around and of course this year was no different. A friend from work makes chocolates and said she would teach me the tricks of chocolate making. So I took a day and make all kinds of chocolate truffles, barks, and boxes. I used chocolate molds to make boxes and candies to put inside the edible boxes. Then we made Raspberry Truffles, Mint Dark Chocolate Truffles, Cinnamon Milk Chocolate Truffles (not Jason’s favorite!), Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Truffles, and Nutella Truffles. As well as White Chocolate Peppermint Bark and Milk Chocolate Smores Bark. It was so yummy, pretty, and easy. We put them in nice boxes to deliver and added a bow on top! I was so proud of myself. We made close to 100 boxes between the 2 of us. It was a lot of work but totally worth it.
Before we left for Utah we had one final tradition we had to fulfill – the Chicago Christkindl Market with our buddies Rob and Tiff. Every year since we moved here we have gone downtown to Daley Plaza for the Christkindl German Market. We always get a mug and sometimes an ornament. Then we walk around the city and look at all the lights and decorations. Of course we go to Macy’s (formerly Marshall Field) and see their window displays and huge trees. Play with the toys in FAO Schwartz and enjoy the perks of living in a big city. It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun!