12-12-12

Sometime in the early 90s, I realized that my birthday would eventually fall on December 12th, 2012 (12-12-12)... and I waited...

Finally, that day has come and gone.  John and I had a very nice time celebrating what would ordinarily be an un-monumental birthday made special by a trifecta of twelves.  I told John about 12-12-12 back when we were dating, and I think he took it as a personal challenge to make the day great... he spent all day calling it "The Birthday of a Life Time".  (I guess he thinks the odds of my living to be 127 aren't that good... not sure why)

Here are 12 ways we celebrated:

1. I took the day off of work and John didn't schedule any work.  It was a Wednesday, so that made 2, 2-day weeks on either side of my birthday.
2. We slept in... for a little bit at least.
3. John gave me a headset to use when I work from home, the honor of throwing away a shirt of his that I hate, and a bucket of Andes mints.
4. We drove to Glen Rose and ate lunch at a sweet little shop called Storybook Cafe.



Storybook Cafe is a bookshop and cafe in one.  It was charming and particularly cute with all its Christmas decor.



They had neat little table decorations and games... this one is holiday dominoes.



And there was a snowman!



5. After lunch, we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park.

6. We saw fossils and dinosaur models.




















7. We took a hike.

8. We expressed our inner children on the swing-set.

9. Then we took a break to enjoy the nice weather at the park.  I read a book and John decided to take a nap.
10. After the park, we returned to Glen Rose for a nice dinner at The Riverhouse Grill, which is an old mansion converted into a restaurant.  
11. We had chocolate cake for dessert.
12. We drove home and enjoyed a movie on our early Christmas present to our-selves (a TV and DVD player in the master bedroom)

In my opinion, 12-12-12 was a great success... well worth the wait... not sure what we'll do to top it on the next 12-12-12 for my 127th birthday.  :)

Thanksgiving 2012

It feels important to take a little time this time of year to think specifically about what I'm thankful for.  It seems like once a month or so, John and I find ourselves saying to each other that we're incredibly blessed in our lives, so I know that as I set out to write this post, I have no shortage of things to be thankful for this year.

• Always first on my list: My wonderful family.  My fabulous husband of a year and a half, excellent parents who are still so encouraging in my adult life, great in-laws who hosted John and I on our Greek excursion this year, a brother I seem to love more with each year that we grow older (and further from our sibling rivalry years) and a brother-in-law that I'm still enjoying getting to know better.
• The prospects of potentially adding another heart to that beautiful family (no, there's not any news on that front yet, but the prospects are an exciting part of life)
• An extended family that sometimes seems even more eager than John and I about said "prospects" :)
• Many close friends that bring joy to our everyday lives through dinners, parties, UNT athletics, and many other get-togethers.
• A comfortable home with a successful renovation project this year (Thanks Hillary!)
• An employer that respects me and my contributions and celebrated them with a manager promotion this year.
• 2 adorable dogs - Happily, both now in good health!
• Randi, for introducing me to my new favorite hobby: Crochet.
• That John and I have no major trials or health concerns, and that those in our lives who do have health concerns are under the care of first-class doctors. 
• And... that I'm pretty sure the Mayans are wrong, and John and I will have many more years on Earth to celebrate our lives together. ;)

Thank you Lord for your many blessings!

Tradition

I like traditions.  It's nice to know what to expect and to remember previous occurrences through traditions.  John and I have a New Year's Eve tradition that we celebrated for the 5th time this year.  Every New Years Eve / New Year's Day that we've known each other, we've been at Cafe Brazil for midnight.

Cafe Brazil doesn't have any special New Year's Festivities, but they have a TV that's watching the ball in New York, and most of the restaurant participates in a pretty subdued count-down for the last 10 seconds of the year.

The first time I came to Dallas to visit John we ate at Cafe Brazil for dinner because it was one of only a few places open after the game we went to.  Then for our 1st New Year's celebration a few months later, we went to Cafe Brazil because it was open and we had enough time to get there after John finished working on the evening news.  We had wanted to go to one of the big New Year's parties in town, but it would have been a logistics nightmare by the time John got back from work. 

We eat at Cafe Brazil throughout the year because we like it, but I guess the Cafe Brazil tradition started because we were settling for something to do at the New Year.  It turned out to be perfect for us.  We're not much for the crowd of strangers party scene.  So, ringing in 2012 was our 5th New Year together, and we were at Cafe Brazil, just like 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Merry Christmas

We went down to Houston to see my parents for Christmas this year.  For Christmas Eve, my parents' church asked our family to light the Christ Candle during the Christmas Eve service.  My grandparents, parents, and cousins (who have 2 kids) are all members of the same church, so there are 4 generations of the family that are members there.  Jonathan, John, and I joined the group to make a pack of 11 to light the candle... of course, only 1 person lit the candle and 1 other read the scripture... I guess the other 9 of us were just for moral support.  :)  After the service, we went to my cousins' house for a Mediterranean themed Christmas Eve Celebration.  We ate some great food and enjoyed socializing with family and friends.

4 Generations of the Moore Family - ready to light the candle at church

We did the traditional Walton Family Christmas on Sunday morning, including stockings and gift exchange.  Then, the rest of the family in town joined us for a nice lamb dinner and Happy Birthday Jesus cake.

The 4 stockings on the left have been around for at least 26 years.  Mom started working on a stocking for John a few weeks ago... It's not quite finished though, so it was pinned to another stocking for the big day.

The tree at my parents' house just before we tore into the presents

We had a fun and relaxing time with my family, and when there weren't Christmas related festivities, we (Jonathan, John, and I) could generally be found on the couch...

Wii Fun - They're playing basketball in this shot

In addition to several Wii games, we also had fun adding new Miis to our collection... including Mr. and Mrs. Claus, Abe (Lincoln), and Sacajawiia (spelling intentional - Jiisus and Einsteiin have been in our Mii family for a while).

We enjoyed our Christmas with the Waltons and are looking forward to Christmas with the Hansens later this week.

Merry Christmas, All!

One of the Perks of John's Job

Vendor Gifts!

In the spirit of holiday giving, several of the vendors that John works closely with have sent holiday gifts to his office... I particularly like John's vendor gifts because many come in the form of chocolate, and we all know who that's really for.  Though, John does get to eat some himself.

This Santa Stacker had goodies in each level - An assortment of mints, peppermint bark, white chocolate and peppermint covered pretzels, and peppermint - chocolate popcorn.

I particularly liked the Santa Stacker because it doubles as a new Christmas decoration that I can reuse in coming years... though I wish it could also magically refill itself with chocolate each year too. :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I've been working on personalized stockings for our house since early November 2010.  I must admit that not much happened on the stockings between early January and mid-October 2011, but it still took about 4 months to finish both. 

Growing up, my family had these personalized stockings for each person, and I thought it would be a neat tradition to continue for our new family.  Of course, my childhood stocking still hangs at my parent's house for our Christmas celebrations there.  So, last year I picked out 2 new stocking kits to make for me and John.  I'm really excited that both are finally finished.

A close up of John's - Ioannis is phonetic Greek for John

A close up of mine - I actually finished mine about a week before Christmas last year.

Beyond the stockings we have a few other Christmas decorations around the house:

The Big Christmas Tree

In the Dark!

Our College Spirit Christmas Tree.  This is the fist tree we owned, and it's bright Green (Kelly Green is for UNT) with Silver and Gold ornaments as a shout out to the Green and White of UNT and the Green and Gold of Baylor.

Snowman Wreath - I got this for Christmas last year, so this is the first time it's been up as a decoration.

NOEL Snowmen - I've had these snowmen bringing Christmas cheer for many years starting with my dorm room in college.

I also put out green and red guest towels and piled some extra ornaments decoratively on the coffee table.  We don't have a lot of Christmas decorations, but it's a nice touch.  I like that the house looks festive, and I'm sure I'll add a little each year.

Red, White, and Boom

There hasn't been much exciting to post about recently.  John and I have both been busy with work, but we did take some time to enjoy July 4th weekend.

On Saturday, we went up to the studio space John has been doing a lot of work out of recently so I could see the space.  Then, in the afternoon, I made cookies!  We successfully resisted eating all the cookies on Saturday, so we could bring them with us to the fireworks show on Sunday.

Sunday, we met up with some friends in Fort Worth to go to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra patriotic concert and fireworks show at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.  We had lawn tickets, so we showed up 1 hour and 45 minutes before the show to stand in line. At 6:30, they let us in, which consisted of everyone rushing to grab space on the lawn.

After we were situated, it was dinner time.  (The show didn't actually start until 8:00)  Our friends had smoked some ribs and made a corn salsa, and another couple brought some pasta.  We brought the cookies for desert.  It was one of the best picnics I've had in a long time!

The evening was carefully planned so that about the time we were grabbing up space on the lawn, the sun was ducking behind the Botanical Garden's trees, and a light breeze made the weather not too bad to be outside for several hours.  The orchestra was nice, and the fireworks were fun. All-in-all a pretty good July 3rd.

For the real July 4th on Monday, we just relaxed at home.  I cooked both lunch and dinner, which I think is a first for me.  We got to watch more fireworks that evening too... This was our first 4 of July in this house, and we learned that we can see 2 fireworks shows from our back porch (though not nearly as close up a show as we had gotten at the Botanical Gardens).