We're Engaged!

Yes, that's right, my blog-reading friends (most of whom already know this because I've talked to you or you saw it on Facebook), Michael and I are engaged. He proposed to me on Saturday night. I'll share all the details in a future post, but for now, I'll share some pictures of the ring. Michael and I shopped for rings months ago and we liked the same thing: simple and classic. It is perfect. Now I just need to get used to wearing it :-)

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to two weeks of no work. I need this break.

Creep to a crappy work week. My eyes hurt so much from crying last night that I had to put a cool rag on them to reduce the swelling.

Sunshine to Michael for being amazing and supportive this week (and always).

Sunshine to a fun weekend ahead – tonight, Hollidazzle and tomorrow, nice dinner out with Michael.

Creep to having to go to a work party on Sunday.

Creep to what is looking like a brown Christmas. No snow in the forecast, but I’m hoping that will change.

Creep to not being able to do Sunday’s Advent activity – build a snowman - due to lack of snow.

Sunshine to seeing Michael’s sisters this weekend. Both just came home on Wednesday, and it will be nice to have everyone together again for the first time since August.

Sunshine to seeing my family in 12 days! 

Sunshine to lots of yoga and working out next week (I hope!).

Sunshine to almost being done with our stocking hanger board.

Activity Advent Calendar Update

We are already halfway through the activity Advent calendar. I can't believe Christmas is in 12 days!!

Day 9 

Every time I kiss you, my heart flutters. Let’s make that happen again and kiss under some mistletoe at least once today.

So I didn't have real mistletoe for this. We improvised with some parsley :-)

Day 10

I will never forget our first date. Let’s recreate it tonight and go ice skating.

Our first date consisted of ice skating at Grant Park in downtown Chicago. It was a great day and something we both will never forget. Unfortunately, the place where we were going to go was closed on Saturday. BOO! We have a lot going on in the next few weeks but if we don't go before Christmas, I'm sure we'll go another time this winter. Instead, we went out for dinner in MSP, just the two of us, for the first time since August.

Day 11

It’s Sunday and we have the day to spend together. Let’s make our favorite Christmas cookies and snack all day.

On the agenda to be made were: 

Bon bons - check!

Homemade Reese Cups- check!

Candy Cane Cookies - check!

Kiss Cookies - check! But I made them last night 

Krumkake - no check - impossible to make on our electric stove, which I discovered last night :-( 

We also made an AMAZING steak dinner with freezer corn, bread, and baked potatoes on Sunday - delicious!!!!!!!!

Day 12

I bought you these fun Christmas socks. Wear them today. You can wear them after work if you want :-)

Michael was such a good sport, as I was fairly certain that the socks I bought his were women's socks. He wore them anyways last night - I have the best boyfriend!

Day 13

I am so excited to make a stocking hanger with you so we can hang our stockings. Let’s do it today!

This is a repeat from a few weeks ago, but we are almost done. We worked on it on Saturday and now need to complete the candy cane strip. Here are some preview pics.

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to taking today off of work. After working two weekends in a row, I'm so glad to have today off.

Creep to still having two phone calls I have to do for work this afternoon.

Sunshine to no work this weekend. That means quality time with my LOML :-)

Sunshine to having Michelle and Chad over for dinner tonight. I haven't seen them since Steph's wedding in September! And we only live 30 miles apart. We need to change that.

Sunshine to our activity Advent calendar. We've had a lot of fun with it. Looking forward to this weekend's activities!

Creep to cold weather. The high today is 15 - burr!

Sunshine to one more week of work until two weeks of vacation!

Sunshine to seeing my family in 19 days.

Creep to feeling sick. Go away, sore throat!

Activity Advent Calendar Update

Most of our weeknight activities tend to be "in home," while the weekends are excursions. You will see this theme throughout this week and next.

Day 7

I bought a new Christmas album - let’s listen to it tonight and relax by the “Yule Log.”

I bought a Christmas jazz CD and we enjoyed that last night as we sat by our tree and watched the "Yule Log" on OnDemand from Comcast. 

Day 8

Since we have such a lovely tree, let’s make it even better and wrap all of our Christmas presents and put them under it.

I know there's no way we'll get these all wrapped tonight but we can at least get a start. Pics to come, along with our tree story. I need to get the pictures off my camera...

Activity Advent Calendar Update

I will continue posting our Activity Advent Calendar throughout the month. Here are few more days worth of activities.

Day 2

The last time I made a gingerbread house, I was 10 years old. Let’s make one tonight.

This ended up being a really fun activity. I bought a kit b/c honestly, I just didn’t feel like starting from scratch since I haven’t made one in years. Michael and I decided to deviate from the recommended designs and do our own thing. The frosting was like toothpaste and a bit challenging to squeeze out of the bag but it did its job, and as of this morning, it was still standing. Note to self – do not eat the candy provided in the kit. Michael nearly broke a tooth when he tried to eat one of the candies.

Love the way this pic turned out using Instagram on my iPhone!

Be sure to turn the volume up so you can hear the video.

Day 3

We have still have some shopping left to do. Let’s try to get some of it done today! (Or better yet, let’s finish!).

We almost finished our shopping this day. We have my b-i-l and one more thing for M’s sister Amy and then we’re done! We were actually also really productive as well – five stores (including the grocery store) in two hours. Yay us! P.S. Banana Republic – turn down the heat in your store. It was a freaking sauna.

Day 4

I am so excited to make a stocking hanger with you so we can hang our stockings. Let’s do it today!

We actually didn’t do this on Sunday. Just too much other stuff to do. NBD – we can get it done another day. When we do, I’ll post.

Day 5

Rudolph and Frosty are two of my favorite holiday TV specials. Let’s watch them tonight.

This was so much fun last night. I love Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch, etc. so sitting by our tree and watching these TV specials was perfect.

Day 6

I love our Christmas cards and am so excited that you and I are sending them out. Let’s address and stamp them, and get them in the mail!

M and I made our Christmas cards weeks ago and I've gathered most of the addresses so we plan to get them addressed and stamped tonight so they hit mailboxes soon. I'll share a pic of our card in a later post, once I know they've hit mailboxes.

Activity Advent Calendar – Background and Day 1

This year, Michael and I agreed not to give each other Christmas presents. With our move over the summer and all the nice things we bought when we moved in (like our king-sized bed), we spent quite a bit on ourselves so spending more at Christmas just didn’t make sense. That said, I wanted to make our first Christmas in our own house in MN a fun one. So, courtesy of Pinterest, I got the idea to do a “Christmas Activity Calendar.” Each day, you assign a Christmas-y activity for you to do. I spend several weeks coming up with ideas and assigning (and reassigning activities, which I am still doing) to each day. I planned to create my own Advent calendar like this:

But after spending 10 hours hand-sewing sequins for our Christmas stockings (more on that later), I was crafted out and decided to just buy one. I found this cute one at Joann Fabrics.

I cut out little pieces of paper with a fun saying of what our activity is for each day and put them behind the doors. There were several things I wanted to include but we did them before December 1:

Decorate the outside of our house

“Deck the Hall” – decorate the inside of our house

Buy a Christmas tree

Decorate the Christmas tree

Buy or create an ornament for our tree

Luckily, I had lots of ideas so it was easy to fill each door. I knew going into it that we might not be able to do everything on the day it was assigned, and that’s ok. I’ve also already had to move a few things around, and that’s ok too. It’s just supposed to be fun so I’m not going to get hung up on doing everything on its assigned day.

I put the calendar out on a bookshelf a few days before Dec 1 and let Michael try to guess what was behind the doors for each day (he guessed candy). It was fun to see his face after he opened the box the first day and figured out the theme of the calendar.

Day 1

We still have a little bit of work to do on our stockings. Let’s finish them tonight!

I started working our Christmas stockings for M and I about three weeks ago. Let me be the first to admit, I am not a crafty person. But since my mom made our family’s and my sister Jami made her family’s, I felt like I should make ours too. I didn’t really have much for a vision so I went to Joann’s (literally six times) and Michael’s to get some ideas. I went with felt, simply b/c I don’t have a sewing machine and I didn’t want to hand-stitch fabric. Felt allowed me to use glue, which worked well. Plus, I consider these temporary, as we will have “Mom” and “Dad” stockings someday. So after hours of stitching, cutting, gluing, a few freakouts, and some tears, we finally finished them last week. I planned to have them be a surprise for Michael, but he came home from a hunting trip early, when I was working on them, so he saw them. And that actually worked out nicely because he was a huge help on several parts of them.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Michael's name is long so that created a challenge but I solved it eventually. They certainly look homemade and we don’t have a place to hang them (yet), but I am glad we have stockings with some character for our first Christmas in our house.

Sunshines and Creeps

Creep to a crappy day at work yesterday. All I’m going to say is “Some people…” And by some, I mean many.

Creep to me and my crabbiness lately. I’m determined not to let other people or my job get me down anymore. So Sunshine to no more crabbiness.

Sunshine to homemade pizza night tonight. We haven’t made it in over a month!

Creep to working tomorrow afternoon and evening. That screws up the whole day, and I worked last weekend too :-(

Sunshine to seeing my old Chicago roommie, Jen, tomorrow.

Sunshine to finding out I officially have two weeks off from work for Winter Break (and it doesn’t count as my vacation time – some things about my job are nice). I literally plan to do NO work during that break.

Sunshine to advent calendar fun this weekend (more on that next week).

Creep to no yoga for the past three weeks. I am going this weekend because I need it.

Creep to missing Adam. 

Sunshine to seeing my family in a few weeks. I cannot wait to be home in ND with everyone.

Goals - December 2011

This whole goals thing is starting to weigh me down. I keep have these unsuccessful months where I don't accomplish anything I want to, and all I wonder is "What the heck did I do all month?" Anyways, enough of my sob story - time to report my lack of success for November.

Purple Bold = complete
Black Bold = incomplete

Professional Goals - November

Finish Annual Fund project . Done for now. Lots of "checking in" to do over the next 8 weeks.

Finish alumni/ae relations strategic plan. Draft complete and the Head of School liked it. Now I need to revisit it (and I don't know when that will happen).

Set date for Reunions 2012. Date is still the same as last month and 100% official, which makes me extremely sad :-((

Develop volunteer job description and plan for Reunions 2012. Still working on this. Hopefully done before Christmas but unlikely.

Update resume.  I didn't even touch it.

Think about my long-term career goals. Nor did I really get anywhere on this.

Personal Goals - November

Finish Christmas shopping. More than halfway done but not finished. 

Buy/make Christmas decorations (including stockings). Started but not finished here either. Hoping to finish the stockings in the next week.

Cardio three days a week. Close but no cigar.

Yoga once a week. I haven't been in nearly three weeks :-(

Post "before" and "after" pics of at least one room on my blog. This will come eventually.

Finish putting away basement. Not only is it not put away, it looks about 10 times worse.

Go on one Date Night. Success! We went out in AZ.

Decorate for Christmas. Done for the most part. Just have the stockings left.
Bake something (Christmas cookies?). Yes - coffee cake, caramel rolls, and kiss cookies all this month!
Try a new recipe. Done - Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. Not a fan. Probably won't try them again.


Professional Goals - December

Database training.

Update alumni/ae relations strategic plan and plan timeline.

Develop volunteer job description and plan for Reunions 2012. 

Update resume.
Think about my long-term career goals. 

Enjoy two weeks of NO WORK! Don't check email. "It's just alumni relations" will be my motto.


Personal Goals - December

Blog about our activity Christmas calendar daily.

Take lots of pictures and videos of Christmas activities.

Enjoy spending time with Michael and our families and friends.

Celebrate the life of my friend Adam (who died on December 3, 2010).

Cardio three days a week. 

Yoga once a week. 

Take down Christmas decorations before going to ND.

Go out for a romantic pre-Christmas dinner.

Bake Christmas cookies.

Try a new recipe. 

Christmas is coming!

I love Christmas! It is my favorite time of year, and I am especially excited for this Christmas, as it is me and Michael's first Christmas in our house. Last year was our first Christmas together, but I think this year is even more exciting because we get to do a lot of Christmas stuff together - chop down our own tree (more on that another day), decorate our house, etc.

Even though tomorrow is December 1 and in most people's mind, the official kick off to the holiday season, I wanted to share a few pics of what has happened at our house so far.

We put up lights on our house (it was so nice last weekend and we had the time so we got that crossed off our list).

And we went to a tree farm and chopped down our first Christmas tree. There will be much more on the tree in the future, as the chopping was the easy part. Everything else has been not so easy...

Stay-cation

Coming back to work today was HARD! I typically dread Mondays and was especially feeling the dread last night and this morning as I mentally prepared for my first 5 day work week in a month. I get crabby and quiet around 5pm on Sundays and it doesn’t go away the whole night. I don’t sleep well Sunday nights. I move in slow motion as I get ready for work on Monday morning and spend the first few hours on Monday wishing it was Friday at 4pm so I could have two days of weekend bliss.

Having five days off for Thanksgiving break was glorious. I realized this is this first long weekend that Michael and I have had together that didn’t involve traveling, weddings, projecting, etc. We could just do our own thing, and for the most part, we did. Don’t get me wrong – we love our families and treasure the time we get to spend with them. But there is something to be said for spending a holiday in our hometown and not spending two days in the car at the beginning and end of the weekend or sleeping on a couch.

We sadly realized that that was our last stay-cation for months – any other time we have off will be spent traveling and see our families. Again, we love that time but having a long weekend together in MSP was so nice, and I wish it was happening again sooner. I have MLK and Presidents Day off but Michael does not. I get two weeks at spring break but Michael does not. I plan to take Good Friday off in April since Michael gets it off and it’s the day before my birthday. So I guess April 6-8 will be our next stay-cation.

It can’t get here soon enough!

My niece is here!

Kynleigh Rae Sison was born around 8pm last night. We are so excited to welcome her to our family.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Isn't she beautiful?!

My Girlfriend Got Married Part 2

Last week, I posted Part 1 of my Girlfriend Johanne’s wedding. You can read about it and view pictures here.

Michael was in Chicago on Friday night for an event so he flew down on Saturday morning. After picking up his parents’ car in Scottsdale, he drove down to Tucson and arrive just a few hours before the wedding. We were able to see each other before it too, which was so nice b/c I just missed him so much (I know - cheesy but I really did!). I was also able to hand off the camera so he could take some pics during the ceremony.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet. Eva did a nice job and other than it being really windy (which led to Johanne’s veil catching on the bridge and me dashing out to fix it so it didn’t rip off her head), it went off without a hitch. It was a cloudy day in Tucson and it ended up raining later, but the temperature was pleasant and overcast skies are a photographer’s dream so I’m sure the wedding pics turned out great.

Ceremony site

Pretty!

Johanne's aunt Eva and Jason

My walking partner Justin and me

Here comes the bride

Johanne and her mom

Vows

More vows

Married!

Ceremony over

The ceremony and reception were held at the same venue, which was so nice. After some pics post-wedding, I was able to meet up with Michael and spent the rest of the night having a great time. I was able to see my roommate from when I lived in CO, Abby (we were connected courtesy of Johanne), who I haven’t seen since her wedding in CO 4+ years ago, which was SO great and some of Johanne’s other friends who have become my friends over the years. Though the DJ played some interesting choices (Back that Ass Up and Get Low – my grandmas would have died hearing those songs), it was a good time and Johanne and Jason really enjoyed the evening and that's the most important thing. I leave you with a bunch of pictures now.


Congrats to Johanne and Jason!


P.S. Jason said I can still call Johanne Girlfriend; I just can't call her Wife. No problem, Jason! I don't think she wants you calling her that either :-)

Me and M

I have the best date :-)

Bride and groom at their table

Speeches

First Dance

Me and Abby, my roommate from my summer in Colorado. Love her!

Still working on getting some good pics of us

Cutting the cake. It was delicious!

Time to throw the bouquet. The bridesmaid next to me is Johanne's sister and she caught it. 

Grooving on the dance floor.

The bridge having a great time.

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to a short work week. Mondays are my least favorite day and this week was the first good Monday I've had in months. Thank you, vacation!

Creep to a really busy week this week. We got back at 1am on Monday/Tuesday; had dinner with Michael's parents Tuesday; babysat for my aunt and uncle on Wednesday; and went to the Wild game last night.

Sunshine to seeing my friend Marc at the Wild game last night.

Creep to being home alone for the first weekend ever in our new house. Michael is going hunting with his dad and even though I'm happy he's having some bonding time with his dad, I'll miss him.

Sunshine to hopefully being really crafty this weekend. We need some Christmas decoration and since I grew up in a house that made most of them ourselves, I'm going to attempt to that in my home. I need to channel my sister Jessi for this because she is the craftiest person I know :-)

Creep to the wintery weather forecast for this weekend. I will be a hermit and craft at home while it snows because I hate driving the first day of snow. People forget how to drive and there are accidents galore.

Sunshine to listening to my Pandora Christmas Music Station all weekend long while I craft.

Creep to my shopping list for my crafty weekend. I'm really going to try to keep it cheap but it's long.

Sunshine to a successful Give to the Max Day for my school. We increased alumni/ae participation by 150% - yay me (and our alumni/ae)!

Sunshine to a two day work week next week! That will make going to work so easy (also, we have Grandparent/Special Person Day at the Lower and Middle Schools so it will be fun).

Sunshine to my sister Jami - Kynleigh will be here soon, sister!

Creep to the crappy lunches at school lately. I know they are free, which is great, but I am so sick of some of the choices.

Sunshine to the Cities97 Sampler. What a great CD!

Sunshine to hopefully getting a few much-needed workouts in this weekend.

My Girlfriend Got Married! Part 1

Last weekend, Michael and I were in AZ for my Girlfriend Johanne's (pronounced Yo-Hannah) wedding. Johanne and I became Girlfriends (with a capital G) in graduate school. She was a year ahead of me in our program and we clicked within the first week of meeting each other. We went for walks together every single night and pretty much spent every second together in 2005-2006. We actually spent so much time together that people thought we were an actual couple, hence our nicknames for each other is Girlfriend. I would have never made it through grad school if it wasn't for Johanne, and I am so thankful to have her in my life.

So Friday, I flew down to Tucson alone (M had to go to Chicago and met me there Saturday for the wedding) and spent the day hanging out and helping where I could. We had a quick rehearsal with Johanne's aunt Eva, who officiated the ceremony. I know Eva pretty well, after spending time with her when she lived in Chicago on several occasions. And now she lives in MSP so we plan to get together soon.

Rehearsing with the readers

Bride and groom (of course, my GF is looking fashionable :-) )

More rehearsing

Then we went to the rehearsal dinner. It was at a Mexican restaurant. DELICIOUS!

Me and my GF

B and G sharing a laugh

Kransekege (pronouced con-sa-kay) - traditional Danish dessert with marzipan. Johanne is Danish (I'm sure you knew that by her name) and her grandma made this. So good!

Johanne and Jason

Saturday morning, we woke up and started getting ready. It was a fun day of hair, makeup, laughs, and memories.

Bride post-hair and pre-makeup

Back of hair

Post-hair/pre-makeup

Kristin getting fake eyelashes put on (they look great in photos)

Me and the bride post makeup (too much blush on me!)

Then it was time to get dressed and head to the ceremony/reception venue.

Kristin and Joanna

Bride in the limo

Me and Johanne's mom, Eileen.

Bridesmaids and bride

Bridesmaids minus me (we all wore different dresses in the same color and fabric)

And now for some pictures of the bride!

So pretty

Finishing touches

Gorgeous

Me and my GF

Johanne and Jason didn't want to see each other before the wedding but they wanted a few pictures. Here was their super cute compromise (idea courtesy of Pinterest - gotta love it!)

Professional photographers capturing the moment

Time for the veil

Part 2 coming soon!!!