My mom really wanted to go to Garden Ridge since they don't have one close to them and she saw pictures of it when I put it on our blog. We headed there first and it was a good stop. They still had a lot of Christmas items left and everything was 50% off. I found some cute wire baskets and Mom found LED lights. She also found a new picture for her living room too. We walked around the whole store to see what was new. They are already starting to get set-up for spring and summer so we will definitely have to go back in a month or two. After Garden Ridge we headed to Home Goods and a few other stores before meeting the boys at Wildfire for lunch. We had a really yummy lunch. Wildfire just revamped their lunch menu and one of the new items is a trio of bison burgers with cheddar, parmesan and blue cheese crusts. Everyone except Michael tried out the trio and we were not disappointed, they were delicious! I would definitely recommend them.
After lunch Michael had to head back to the office to get some work done and my parents were going to head home. I went home to relax for a bit before Michael's parents came over for dinner. They wanted to get together for dinner and to come see our Christmas decorations as well so we ordered some Chinese and just hung out. After Michael's parents left, it took Michael all of about 2 minutes to go downstairs and start putting our elliptical together. It was about 9 pm at this point and little did we know it wouldn't be put together until about midnight!
Our elliptical in pieces
It didn't take very long to get all of the mechanical parts of the elliptical together. It probably only took an hour. The worst part of the assembly was all of the plastic covers that have to be screwed on over all of the joints and almost any part that was metal. Michael gave me the lovely task of doing all the plastic covers. It took about 2 and a half hours to get them all on. It wasn't hard it was just that a lot of the screws were in tight or awkward spots so it just took some time.
Putting the plastic covers on the arms
Finally I got all the plastic covers on with some last minute assistance from Michael and it was ready to go! We put it in place and Michael and I each took it for a midnight test run.
Michael testing it out
Me testing it out
We were so happy it was all done and put together, but we were exhausted. We went upstairs and crashed. On Friday, New Years Eve, we got up and went to breakfast and to the grocery store to pick up some last minute things we needed to make for the party that night. Michael headed home to get started on the cake pops and I went to get a manicure and pedicure. It was so nice, I haven't had a pedicure since our weekend at the Grand Geneva in October, so I really needed it. After leaving the nail salon I headed home to make us some lunch and work on some appetizers for Ken's New Years party.
I made bacon wrapped smokies and sausage balls, which were a new recipe. Michael was working on the cake balls since I had made so many of them over the past 2 weeks. We got everything prepared and then Michael had to run to the office to get some work done and I wanted to get a workout in. I got to use our new elliptical for the first time and I love it! I did a hard 40 minutes and it went by really fast since I can watch tv while I'm doing it. After my workout I showered and got ready for New Years. We were heading to Ken and his sister Kristin's house. This was their second annual New Year's party. They do a great job hosting and we had a lot of fun as always.
Michael's confetti cake balls
Sausage balls
Brown sugar, bacon wrapped smokies
Michael and I before heading out
Host Ken
Tif and her mom Sandi
Rich and Tif just after midnight
Michael and I just after midnight
We had a great time visiting and hanging out with everyone and eating some yummy food. We hung out until about 1 before heading home. We were both exhausted from running around all day, we crashed.
We didn't wake up until 10 on New Year's Day and we both felt like we got hit by a truck. We went and had breakfast and then we lounged around for a good part of the day. Michael got some motivation in the afternoon and started dismantling our Christmas tree and village. I joined him so we could get everything done. We got everything boxed up and we went and grabbed some dinner. I also got my 2010 blog book put together and ordered, which was big. I am going to do a post on it later this week. Overall, it was a nice lazy day.
No more Christmas village, back to books
Fresh and clean china cabinet
A new tablescape for the New Year
Michael getting his Dyson on
After getting everything cleaned up we had some lunch and just relaxed and watched some football. We are going to just enjoy the last bit of our time together before I go back to work tomorrow. It's been so nice to be off work for 2 weeks. It's had it's ups and downs, but I'm so glad to have this time off. Now it's time to get back to work so we can start saving and planning for our next vacation! I hope all of you have had a great weekend and a great start to the New Year!
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