YAY!! Better Sleeping!!

Not that we weren't sleeping well before, but there were times when we would both wake up very stiff and could only attribute it to a very old mattress. The full size mattress we have been sleeping on for 3 years was my old mattress that I got before I went to college even, and who knows how old it was before I got it. It served me well in my single years and it has been good during my married years too, but we are both excited to be getting a brand new, bigger and better one!
I have to appologize that I didn't even think to take pictures this weekend, but David's dad suprised us and decided to come up for the weekend. It was very nice having him here and we all went mattress shopping on Saturday. Part of our Christmas present from him was 1/2 the cost of a new mattress, so his excuse for coming to visit out of the blue was to find us a good mattress and get us a good deal. And he did. We went to a few mattress places and he talked to the sales guy and asked all kinds of questions. Then he haggled a little and got us $100 off the price with a frame and free delivery of a brand new pillow-top queen size mattress that you don't even have to flip becuase of the new technology. It also has a 10 year warantee, although we don't plan on using it that long before we upgrade again. Anyway, I'm so excited to try it out. It looks like it will sleep great!

Check out the new additions to my blog

Just wanted to make you all aware that I have added a few links to some of my favorite sites. Definitely something to check out when you have some free time. And also check out David's and my family life verses that I added under the new link section.
More posts to come soon...much sooner than the last ones :)
Have a Happy New Year, Everyone!! It's gonna be a Great 2008!!

Happy New Year 2008!!!

We just had an incredibly fun New Year's Eve party last night. It started at 8pm and then David and I didn't get in bed till 3am. So I slept until 1pm today, and that's why I am just now getting to my blog. But anyway, back to the party...It was so much fun. We had gobs of food, a strobe light and disco ball with jammin' music playing all night. We did dance some, but not the whole time becuase there was so much other stuff to do.

One side of the room was set up with casino tables - a Black Jack table and a Texas Hold'em Poker table. When we arrived we all got $100 in play money that we could cash in for chips to play cards if we wanted to. I played for a little while but not too long because I squandered all my money away. But it was fun. The dealers had white collared shirts with bowties that lit up.

But then Martha took over being the dealer for the Texas Hold'em table. Isn't she cute in the hat and bowtie?

There was also a ping pong tournament going on the whole time, and whoever wanted to could play the Nintendo Wii in the corner of the room on a big screen. David entered the ping pong tournament and did pretty good. We also had some breaks in the action for fun XS drinking games. (Just to clarify, for those of you who don't know, XS is a healthy energy drink - one of the products we have in our business) By the way, the girls ruled in flip cup!!

Here we all are playing it.

At the end of the night we turned on the TV to the ball dropping in NYC on the big screen and we all toasted XS in fluted cups. Then 2 guys got up on the stage and played auld lang syne on their trumpets. We kissed and then slow danced to a couple of songs, and posed for pictures. What a fun way to ring in the new year.

Christmas with our Families

The 1st family Christmas celebration was down at the beach, where David's family lives. We stayed with his dad, who lives about 2 blocks from the ocean, but most of the pictures are from the Christmas party at his mom's house who lives right on the sound. We got down to the beach on Friday, just in time for the tail end of one of David's good friend's 30th birthday party. So we hung out with those people for the rest of that night, then the next morning David and his dad went to the country club to play golf. I joined them a little later so I could be the photographer. Here are a coulple of my shots. David and his dad like to walk instead of ride in a cart for more exercise. After they played a while he had me get some pictures of him at the practice tee so he could see how is swing looked. Here's one of my action shots.

After golf, the 3 of us had lunch there at the country club, then just relaxed at his dad's house until dinner at his mom's.His mom's house was really decked out for Christmas. She had several Christmas trees around the house and this one HUGE one right as you came up the stairs into the living room.

Jane and Everett cooked a wonderful beach Christmas dinner with shrimp and scallops and seafood chowder. The kids sat at a separate table and ate first while the adults sat around and chatted.

I was also able to get some really good updated pictures of David, his brother and his dad together.

And David and I got a great picture together along with Ian and Kathy's little dog, Fairway. He was so sweet. He just loved me. When I first got there, he jumped across 2 other people to land in my lap. And of course I loved him too. I can't wait to have pets...maybe after we move I'll get one. Anyway, isn't he cute?!?

After we all enjoyed the delicious meal, we went downstairs to open presents and for an extra surprise!

Once we were all downstairs there was a knock at the front door, and one of the kids went to open it. Then they all went wild becuase it was SANTA!!! Jane had arranged for the parks and recrecation guy, who dresses up like Santa every year, to come and visit us that evening.

He took each kid on his lap and asked them what they wanted for Christmas, then gave them a candy cane. Here's a picture of all the kids with him together. Then some of us adults got to sit on his lap for a picture too, becuase let's face it, at our age, we're not getting a lot of pictures with Santa. Anyway, it was fun, and the kids had a blast!

Everyone enjoyed opening presents, and we all got some really nice things. We stayed a visited a little while longer, then we went back to his dad's and the next morning did our presents there.

We had to leave to come back home that afternoon, so it was a very short trip, but it was nice to see everyone for the holidays.

On our way back home we stopped in Goldsboro to have dinner with one of David's good friends that he hasn't seen in a while. We didn't leave there til nearly 9pm, so we didn't get home til midnight, and we both went to work the next day for half a day.

So on Christmas eve we met up with my parents and brother and went to movie matinee. We saw National Treasure 2 and all really enjoyed it. Then David and I went back to my parent's house and, even though they only live 15 minutes from us, we spent the night there. It was sooo nice. We had dinner that night, then stayed up playing Balderdash and watching Shrek the 3rd.

On Christmas morning we got up and had a nice big cooked breakfast before opening presents.

Then we all took our time opening presents and sipping egg nog. Here are several pictures of us enjoying ourselves on Christmas morning.

And since this may be the last time we have Christmas with Trixie, I will add a picture of her. She is 14 now and still doing well, but we are not sure how much longer she will be with us.We spent most of the time just relaxing and enjoying the day. We ate snacks and watched another movie. Then we didn't even eat our lunch until nearly 4 o'clock! But when we did eat it, it was definitely delicious. We visited for a little while longer and played another game, then we finally left at 8:30.

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas will all our family and friends.

Finally Christmas Celebration Pictures with Friends

I really wanted to get these up here sooner, but this holiday season has been a really busy one for us and this is really the 1st time I have had the time to sit down and do it.

So we actually had 6 different Christmas celebrations this year. (What can I say, we are popular people :) just kidding) Some of them were just a short visit at friends houses to exchange gifts, others were a little party with several of us getting together, and of course we had both family celebrations as well, so I am just going to briefly recount our many little Christmas celebrations.

The weekend before Christmas was the 1st one. Our good friends Marty and Amanda had several of us over to their place for a delicious dinner and Christmas party. Here are a few pictures from that. This is the guys congregating in the kitchen - always near the food. Then the after picture of David and Marty relaxing after a big meal (the classic guy pose).

One of the couples brought their little boy. He's only 3 but he was so good and just loved his monster trucks. Here we are playing with them on the floor.

After all the food and fellowship at their place, we went to the theater in their clubhouse and all watched a movie - one of David's new favorites - The Bourne Ultimatum.

The next night our friends Dave and Julina had us over to their house late in the evening for snacks and dessert and to exchange gifts. Their house had a great Christmas-y feel with the fire going and a couple of trees. Here's Julina sitting by the fire, and here is a not-so-great picture of me and David by their big Christmas tree.

Then I think we had 1 night off, and the following night we drove to Charlotte (about an hour and a half away) to hang out with our friends Stephen and Eleanor. Here's a couple of pictures from that visit. (notice the classic guy pose again in the first picture :)

And here is Eleanor with their adorable wild dog, Max.

Then the last celebration before all of our family celebrations was another little party at West and Martha's house. The guys all sat around looking at something electronic and this time us girls huddled around the food and talked before playing games later. The guys went into the dining room to play Texas Hold'em Poker, and us girls played Outburst in the kitchen.

It was also a big night for Trey, Kit and Eileen's little baby boy. He had his first taste ever of red velvet cake and he loved it!

He is so adorable...just look at those big eyes!

Well, since this post ended up being so long, I will go ahead and make a separate one for Christmas with our Families.