Mississippi

This year Jason and I drove to Mississippi for New Years. Danny, Erin, Jason, are officially the masters of surprises. Jim and Debbie had no idea that we were coming. Jason and I burst through the door at about 11:00 at night and everyone was very surprised. We had a wonderful time at Danny and Erin's house. We had a fiesta for New Years, and the food was awesome. We went bowling, and also a little gift giving. We had to strategically mail several gifts so Jim and Debbie wouldn't get suspicious but we were able to save a few for our trip.

Danny displaying his SUPERB wrapping job...no surprises there.

Danny and Erin did get a us a super awesome fire pit for our backyard, which we are so excited to use. It was just Danny's wrapping that was sub par:)

This year I brought an extra special gift for Danny...a fabulous gift basket of Hannah Montana trinkets, including crayons, pencils and even a nightlight. I heard a rumor that Danny likes party in the USA. Anyway, apparently I have started a war. However, what Danny doesn't realize is that I have always wanted a big brother to joke around with and I have 23 years of only childhood, so have some serious catching up to do.

BOWLING!!!!!!

Debbie, Jim, Jason, and I

New Years Fiesta!!!!

These pictures are somewhat random, so I feel as though I should explain. Lauren got this awesome game Quelf. This game consists of random and somewhat embarrassing tasks that you have to complete. We played this ridiculous game for 3 hours and no one won. We had a blast though! Lauren drumming with kitchen utensils.

Jim...deciding which color lipstick he will have to put on. I don't think either color was a great choice for him:)

Erin and Lauren

Danny...completing some random task....not real sure. Here I am wearing my napkin bib that I had to fashion for the game.

Christmas Morning at the Areharts

This year we had Christmas in Waynesboro with my family. This was a wonderful Christmas but it was very different for us and both sets of our parents. I also know it was an adjustment for Jason to be in a small family for Christmas...not quite as crazy as the Trueblood family Christmas mornings. We got some really awesome gifts and had a great Christmas.

Mom and dad opening their gifts.

Dad opening their gift card for a weekend getaway at the Homestead.

Jason Opening our new coffee maker from Jim and Debbie.

Jason opening his new tennis shoes. He's super excited to go to the gym with me:)

Dad got a new Wii fishing game and he's already practicing. He's going to need the practice...when he played it later in the day he caught a few 3 lb fish and ran 4 boats into the dock.

Thanks to the new golfing gear, Jason thinks he's going to take Tiger spot on the PGA tour. He also got a fabulous monkey driver cover from Jim and Debbie to go with the bag and towel.

Christmas Eve Waynesboro

Since we have a very small family, every year we have a big dinner with all of our best friends Donna, George, and Rachel Lester, Sharon, Jullian, Rachel, and Bekah, O'Dell, and Pete and Debbie Shifflett. All of our families get together and we have a wonderful time telling stories, playing games, and having festive food. This year the dinner was at the O'Dell's house. It was wonderful, Bekah was back from China and her sister Rachel flew in from British Colombia. It was so great to be able to get together with everyone this year.

Rachel, Rachel, Bekah, and I

Debbie Shifflett

Jullian O'Dell Bekah and Sharon cooking an awesome dinner in the kitchen.

Blizzard of 2009

We got hit by the blizzard of 2009 this past weekend. We got about 27 inches of snow and were snowed in the entire weekend. We had to postpone our family Christmas with my mom's family and my cousins. The snow was beautiful and it did get me out of school of 3 days which was nice...since the kids are hopped up on Christmas cookies and are MORE than ready for Santa. I know Jim and Debbie were super jealous of our beautiful weather....just like New Hampshire:)

Christmas Parties

This weekend Jason and I had two Christmas parties. We hosted one at our house, which was a lot of fun, and we also got to go to my school Christmas party. Since my commute to work is so far Jason has never met anyone that I work with, so I was excited to introduce him to everyone. We had a blast.

Everyone at my team party from school.

The related arts team members. At this party we had a white elephant or useless gift exchange. The gift had to be something laying around your house and you couldn't go buy it. I re gifted a very special gift I got for my bachelorette party. Let me explain..... as a joke for my bachelorette party Jason's mom Debbie and his sister Lauren wrapped up an old lady house coat/night gown as a gift. So...that was my useless gift. Everyone thought it was the funniest gift there and they loved the story. The art teacher opened the gift and we're still trying to convince her to wear it over her clothes as an art smock on Monday. The house coat got affectionately referred to at the Moo Moo. My useless gift was a Christmas frame that at Jewish teacher received from a previous student. Ta Da!!!!!! The famous Moo Moo.

On Friday night Jason and I invited several work friends, college friends, and neighbors to our house for an open house. We had about 25 people there and is was very successful. We got to know some of our neighbors and got to see some old friends as well. Our spread of appetizers and drinks.