weekend in virginia

well i haven't posted a good post in a while. i haven't had anything exciting to say. :) this weekend we went to hampton, virginia.

whitney was playing and since it was a quick weekend bus trip, i got to tag along! bus call was at 10:30 on friday. we packed up and headed out. we all watched a few episodes of it's always sunny in philadelphia. so hilarious and usually very, very wrong. i got to bed pretty early compared to everyone else at 12:45. i usually try not to get up in the morning til the bus stops because if it's before, it's usually really early. well i woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so i went out to the front lounge. it was 9 am! that's sleeping in for me! :)

we got to hampton around 11 and got the the bus parked. (and by we i mean hovie, the bus driver.) we met whitney and chris at the hotel. they had flown in from their acoustic gig in michigan the night before. we all headed down to the hotel restaurant where we had the worst service i think i've ever experienced. i'll give the waitress a pass because i think she was new. but it took an HOUR for us to get our food. granted there were 10 of us, but we were the only people in the entire place!! ridiculous! plus when the waitress brought out our food, another lady helped her carry everything out. she had the voice of a 85 year old trucker and was complaining that she was hungover. fabulous. by the time we finally ate, the band had to go sound check. they had a pretty early show (4:30) so as soon as they were done, they all needed to shower quickly to get back over to play.

the best part of the day was that my friend, amy, drove down from DC to see us and watch the show! i met her in the lobby to give her her all access bracelet. when we tried to go back through the door i had come from, the lady said "you can't come through here". i said, "but we have all access bracelets." she said, "well not for this door." my gosh! these people. so we had to walk all the way around the outside of the building and go through the band door in the back. so stupid. anyway, the show was great even though the sound was a little off.

after the show, bob, the warner bros. guy took us all out for seafood. yum! we were headed out by 9:00. we watched a few movies, did some tequila shots straight from the bottle (just kidding, mom!) (not really), ate some junk food, and then hit the hay. we got in around 8 or 8:30. enough time to still make it to church to help with coffee clean up. fun weekend all in all.

p.s. check out abbe's blog. it's super cute!! :)

oh crap...

yeah i'm pretty sure our pipes froze last night. we even let the water drip!! but only the hot side (due to my wonderfully sage advice). i thought you only needed to let one side drip. what do we do? the water works perfectly (both sides) in the bathroom sink and shower. but the cold water in the kitchen sink and washing machine don't. ahhh!! not a good thing. but really not a good thing when justin has to leave tonight and has no clothes because there's a ginormous pile of laundry waiting to be done. seriously. suggestions?

HEY!

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Christmas fun-part 4

We got to Terri's in time for dinner. She made a fabulous brisket with all the fixins! After dinner, we opened more presents! This was our 4th Christmas. Not bad. :) We got some wonderful things and again, everyone enjoyed their CDs. Riley got another gift from Terri. It is a green ball that moves on it's own when you push the little button. Riley was a little confused by it at first, but it was hilarious. She loves to play with it. (And Terri, we replaced the batteries and it works much better on our wood floors.)

The day after Christmas we met up with Jesse and headed over to Target to start boosting the economy with all our Christmas money and gift certificates! We spent about and hour there (I could have stayed MUCH longer) and then went over to Panera to grab lunch before heading over to the mall and Best Buy. As we were eating Justin started to not feel well. We decided to just head back to Terri's so he could lay down. Poor guy ended up getting really sick. The kind of sick where you're sitting on the toilet with a trash can in your lap. That's all I'm gonna say.

While Justin was being a sicky in the back bedroom, I got to hang out with some great friends. I got to see Anne and we ran a few errands while we talked in the car. We also stopped at the pet store to look at the adorable puppies. We also STILL have no picture together. That night I went over the the Duell's to catch up with them and see little Jaiya again. She liked Riley, for the most part, except when her tail whacked her in the face. We love the Duells and enjoyed hanging out for a while. Terri and I also got to go one some nice walks. The weather was crazy nice a few days so we took advantage.

On Sunday, Justin was feeling a little better so we headed to KC to hang out with Kirk and Marisa. We went to P.F. Chang's (of course) on the Plaza. It was a unique experience because it took forever to get our food and they kept messing things up. We were there for over 2 hours and we weren't just sitting around. When we got back to their house, Justin took a little nap while the rest of us played Scategories. Kirk won, which was pretty miraculous considering her was playing with Marisa and me. :) After Justin woke up we went bowling. I scored a 141 the second game! My best score ever! I think it was all the practice with Wii bowling. In the morning Kirk and I made his famous cinnamon apple pancakes, fried eggs and bacon. Poor Justin still wasn't feeling that great, so he didn't eat. We headed back to Manhattan to spend some more time there because Justin had been so sick. We were able to hang out some more (especially Justin) with Jesse, Josh and Kylea.

We had a great time and the drive back wasn't even that bad! We only had to stop for gas once! That's pretty amazing for a 680 mile drive. Go Hiro the Honda! I love exclamation points! I think that pretty much sums up our Christmas travels. And hey, it only took me 3 weeks to post it all.

christmas fun-part 3

Well, I've completely been shafting Justin's family in my Christmas posts. Totally unintentional. I didn't have the pictures readily available and you know me, I don't post without pictures! Anyway, now I've got them, so here we go!

We headed to Justin's Aunt Linda's on Christmas morning. We took a different way than normal and really got to take in small town Kansas. Equally beautiful and hilarious. Oh some of the Christmas decorations we saw. Anyway, we got there around ten and helped Noah set up his new Wii. Wii's for everyone!! We ate lunch around 12:30 with Linda's usual awesome spread of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, baked beans, homemade rolls and more. Oh! don't forget her apple pie. It's kind of a big deal.

After lunch we go for the presents. It's usually organized chaos with everyone opening at the same time. We got some great gifts. Justin got a guitar pedal he'd really been wanting and I got a spice rack! Woo hoo! My spice rack is really for all my cookie sprinkles and it's been fun to put together. Riley also got a present and she had fun "opening" it. Basically she tore the bag to bits. It was fun to watch. She got a little dog bowl with doggie shampoo and conditioner and a soap bone and scrubber and a toy. She did pretty well, huh? After we got it open she plopped down with the bowl between her front legs like she knew it was for her.

After presents (and of course listening to the CD Justin made) we took the 4 wheelers out. First we followed Jerry, Jean and Jesse (in their car) out to look at a fallen tree. Jesse was lending his expertise to see wether the wood was any good and if it would be salvageable. Justin and I saw 5 white tail deer bounding across the field. They are so beautiful and can jump so HIGH! Jesse and Noah joined us 4 wheeling out in the pastures for a while. We always go out to the pasture right next to the house. It's an open field and we see how fast we can go. Not the safest thing to do but heck, it's fun! 60 miles an hour on a 4 wheeler when you can't see because your eyes are tearing from the cold just can't be beat! :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing Noah's Wii and hanging out in Grandma Darlene's room. (Heated floors are fabulous!) We headed over to Terri's around 6ish for Christmas fun part 4!

we clean up nicely

christmas fun-part 2

We always spend Christmas Eve at my Grandma and Grandpa Elliott's. We have a wonderful dinner and then dive in to the festivities. We always read a little piece and then light our respective advent candles, (Worked out nicely that there were 5 grandkids. We'll see about the greats!) then dig into the gifts! This year most of the gifts were for the little boys. They also loved playing with the oldies but goodies, tinker toys!
For the grown ups, Mom decided that in the spirit of last year's hideous sweater competition we should play some sort of game. Since most of us usually end up asking for gift cards anyway, we each chipped in and there were 13 different gift cards to win to places like Home Depot and Best Buy for the boys and Hobby Lobby and Victoria's Secret for the girls. We divided into pairs according to birthday and competed for pennies answering Christmas trivia questions. After all the questions were answered we were on our own and divided up the pennies to begin bidding on the card we wanted. It was pretty fun and I think everyone ended up with a card they wanted...or at least they could use! :)

field & fountain

For Christmas this year we decided to make a Christmas CD for all our friends and family. The idea started with my two best Nashville girls, Rana and Colleen, and me at a garage sale we were having late last summer. We decided that since our three husbands all play different instruments (guitar, bass and drums) they all should go together to make a CD. Well the idea came to fruition with the completion of "field & fountain". Each of the boys took two Christmas songs and arranged them however they wanted and then had the other boys record for them. The final product looks beautiful thanks to Colleen's graphic design work and sounds amazing. The songs are very traditional, but the arrangements are not. I think it turned out fantastic and each song really brings out the guy's personality. We have a few extras, so if you didn't get one, but want one, let me know and I'll send it your way.

hila(wii)ty

christmas fun-part 1

Well, I'm sitting in a coffee shop thinking it's going to take me forever to update about our Christmas. It was a great trip. I'll try to go in chronological order and not make this too long.

We left for Wichita at midnight on Friday the 19th. We arrived on Saturday at about 10:40. Pretty good time-huh? We pretty much just chilled out on Saturday because we were pretty tired from the drive. Matt called Justin to play at church that night, so he did. The little boys came over for a little bit and they are always so much fun. While we were eating dinner Dakota asked my mom a question.

Dakota: Nana what's that town?
Nana: Nashville?
Dakota: Yeah. Aunt Anna can I come visit you in Nashville?

How cute is he?! He also decided he needed to get Riley a present so he got her a rawhide. It's her new treasure and she hides it all over the house.

Sunday morning we went to church with my parents and got to talk to the Aboods for a few minutes and give them their Christmas present. (More about that in another post.) For lunch the whole immediate family got together. Mom scared Adam and Aaron for a minute asking them what they wanted on their sandwiches. After both of them almost had a heart attack, she assured them we would be having the traditional beef and noodles for dinner. After lunch, much unwrapping ensued. Most of it revolved around the little boys, of course, but we all got some great presents: a Wii, a new garage door and money for a shotgun. Guess which gift was for who! Dakota got a full scale "worker man" outfit and Creyton got this hilarious bouncing horse thing. The big boys enjoyed the toys as much or more than the little boys. We set up the Wii that night and hilarity followed.

Sunday night we got to go visit Matt and Michele. It was fun to catch up with them even though our dog pooped in their (unfinished) basement. Huge embarrassment! Monday was a day of relaxing and friends. I got to hang out with high school friends Lauren and Mallory. So fun to see them especially since both are pregnant. I also got to see some college roomies, Katie and Amy (and Kyle :)). Kirk came down for a few days to hang out with Justin since Marisa was in the middle of a 30 hour shift. Dang residency!

Mom and I also saved some time to go shopping. It's the little things like now having stacking cooling racks and actual pot holders instead of having to use my rags! I also taught Mom how to knit. She learned as a kid and just needed a little refresher. She's put me to shame and will have her first scarf finished before she goes back to school.