January 2022 Happenings

 Another year gone.  Where is the time going????  All I know is that if I can't travel more in 2022, I'm gonna lose it!

On the first of the year, we went up to Wakefield to the Cucci house for the ???th annual holiday party!  We have (obviously) missed it for the previous 6 years, so we were really excited to go.  Only... we didn't want to drink and drive, so we got a hotel room in Wakefield and brought the kids with us.  They stayed at the hotel after dinner at the Yard House, and we went to the Cucci house to party.

Now don't worry. We could literally walk back to the hotel if we wanted to.  (We got an Uber though - both ways!)  You really can't get Kern and Todd in a room together without something ridiculous happening.

See?  Not that any of us are normal!  But Kern and Todd, who have been asked several times throughout the years if they are brothers, are still less normal than Mike, Cooch, Joe, Michelle and Dorothy!

Todd and his three wives.

Beth, Joe, Cooch and Mike!

The Cucci's had a new kitchen put in when we were in Germany and we hadn't seen it yet - and it is spectacular!  It's so much bigger with a massive island that everyone hung around.  I'm sure Kern or Mike did something ridiculous to warrant these faces.

Cooch can't even believe it.  I would have shared more pictures from this part of the night, but it's not suitable for a family blog! But seriously- look at all this food!

Todd loves Joe, and Beth agrees!

At one point, Karen decided she loved Kern and that she wasn't going to let him leave. (This is Kern doing his best robot imitation!)

Karen and I missed Mandy, and now we need to replace my face on a baby Maker's bottle with Mandy's face!

After a fun night where we laughed so much our stomach's hurt, Cooch and Karen had a full mimosa and bloody Mary bar the very next morning to help us recover!  PLUS they cooked a big breakfast for us all (even the kids got to partake in this!)  They are the BEST hosts!

THEN... Steve sent me THESE PICTURES that he had taken years ago of my babies at Warren and Carole's house.  LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL BABY!

AND JUST STOP RIGHT THERE.  I can't even!!!!!  I want to cry! When did they get so big??

While her death happened on the last day of 2021, we mourned the loss of Betty White for weeks to come (in fact, the world will hurt from this for many years!)  In honor of Betty White- here is a picture of her with my man, Michael Stipe!  This picture brings me such joy!

This, however... does not bring me joy.

The stores also have been hit-or-miss with certain items as we battle it out with the Omicron variant of the Covid 19 virus.  We (along with many other people I know all around the country) cannot seem to find any Gatorade!  Isn't that a weird thing to be out of? Got that Powerade though - and only the Cool Blue Gatorade remains!

Natalie, as I mentioned last month, joined the Ashland High School ski team! Their meets alternated between slalom and giant slalom (she preferred giant slalom), and each week, they race against a handful of other schools at Ski Ward.

Nat leans in for a hello to her dad before she gets back on the lift.  They each did two runs per race, and I have to say- Ski Ward was really good about all of this and super efficient.  The nights were VERY cold and I would not have survived without hand warmers so I don't know how these kids did it!

My little cutie after her first race!  I couldn't be more proud of her.  She loves to ski, but doesn't have any racing experience.  She didn't really care- she just went out there, did her best and had a blast.  She is the complete opposite of Grant, who is super competitive.  I mean- MAYBE joining the team had something to do with her being able to exempt one of her PE classes, but she really does enjoy winter sports!

Meanwhile, Grant continued his peanut immunotherapy every other week with his dad. I always joke that he looks like the doctor here, but they let him use their desk to work on his homework.

In case you were looking for an early January Covid update... 

We had an ACTUAL blizzard in January, too!  A blizzard is defined by the winds, mostly.  You have to have sustained 35 mph winds and snow or blowing snow that reduces visibility to 1/4 of a mile or less for THREE consecutive hours.  And we reached that goal!

People think a blizzard is all about heavy snow amounts and it really isn't.  We only got about 13 inches of snow with this storm.  That's not a small amount, but it's certainly nothing like 2015.

It was still breezy the day after the blizzard and we made the kids help us do some shoveling.  Natalie, ever my New Englander even though she wasn't born here, was actually sweating and had to take off her coat.  The wind chill was waffling between single digits and below zero!

The neighborhood kids took full advantage of the fresh snowfall by doing some night sledding in our backyard when school was cancelled on the following Monday because the DPW couldn't plow all of the roads and bus stops in time for school to start (due to high Covid numbers forcing the DPW workers to take sick time.)  I don't think the kids were too disappointed!

And we're on to February! 

December 2021 Happenings

Time is just slipping away from me and we haven't done a whole lot this winter (who really has with that Omicron variant still pestering the world!?)

Other than going to see BTS in Los Angeles, we had a fairly quiet December.  St. Nicholas, one of our favorite German traditions, came to visit in early December, leaving treats in the kid's boots.

Natalie was able to do a couple of holiday concerts with the high school choir in between the Delta and Omicron variants.  Grant was thrilled.

But Natalie and her classmates sounded lovely at Illuminate Ashland! 

They also did a show at the high school.  They sang holiday songs that we weren't familiar with but certainly couldn't get out of our head by the time the show was over.

I also had to watch this video for a class I was taking at work (about Disaster Recovery Centers) and this scene literally took my breath away. I actually had to pause it - I could not be more certain that this is my dad! It looks JUST like him!  My mom and brother were totally floored when I sent them this. So super creepy (but then again- that's just the kind of joke my dad likes to play on us since he's been gone!)

Since we had such a great time last year at the Magic of Lights, we decided to go again this year (although not on Christmas Eve).

One of my favorite parts!

I think they change up some of the themes each year because this year, they had prehistoric Christmas!  So funny! 

Nothing says Christmas like a Triceratops among the palm trees...

... or a monster truck with an American flag on it! Happy holidays!

We also had our second annual (but not in a row) Indian Food and Frolicking party with Mandy, Cooch and Karen!  My bishes!

Pour me some champagne, Cooch.

I saw this bag when we were in Portsmouth and IMMEDIATELY thought of Karen!  This is a longstanding Wilmington crew joke from one of our trips to Wellfleet!

Well... you KNOW we had to frolic!  It wasn't super cold, thankfully, but it did start to rain when we were out there.  Special thanks to all of my neighbors for not having us arrested as we posed with their holiday lights.

Natalie also joined the ski team and they had dry land workouts, as well as their first practice at Ski Ward.

Hey!  It's December!  So you KNOW I had to make the famous sour cream coffee cake!  

And look!  Even my favorite airplane tracker app got in on the holiday spirit!

Finally, it was Christmas Eve and we decided to take a family selfie with the auto timer on Todd's phone.  One nice one...

... And one goofy one! (And no... Grant is not taller than me yet).

After in-person church, we revived an old Natick tradition by going to Pizzeria Uno's for Christmas Eve dinner. Many people do Chinese food for dinner, but with Grant's peanut allergy, we have never been able to do that.  And one of the only places that is open is Uno's!

My kids are nice to each other on Christmas Eve because they know I can still call Santa and cancel all of their presents.

Next up was the annual tradition of throwing reindeer dust.

As you can see, we also got a little light snow on Christmas Eve, so we were actually able to have a bit of a white Christmas.

I'm so glad they still do this and love the silly traditions we established!

Surprise! There are a couple of presents under the tree for you! Gee, what could it be?

Pajamas.  They get pajamas from us every year on Christmas Eve!

THEN they had to write a letter to Santa.

Natalie, please do not flick your brother in the butt on Christmas Eve. The Lord is watching.

If you are around Natalie anytime of the day after, say... 4 pm, she's a hot mess when her medication wears off. Now throw in the excitement of Christmas Eve and she could not stop laughing and talking at the speed of light. She got through that first sentence before Grant took over the letter-writing. "Stay safe, you're slaying it!"

Todd got out all of the snack items to leave for Santa and the reindeer.  Grant felt the need to do some leg kicks in the kitchen.

Natalie poured Santa a glass of eggnog while stalker Grant observed.

The final product.  Cookies and eggnog for Santa, and a few carrots for the reindeer, along with the letter.

The final Christmas Eve tradition is snuggling up with Daddy while he reads 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

My favorite part of the day every year is watching the Santa tracker on the NoRAD app!  Look!  He's right over our house and it's not even midnight yet! Those kids had better get to bed!

Ahhh.  Finally we could sit down and relax.  Just kidding.  Todd had to put together Grant's big present.

The stockings can't be hung by the chimney with care because they're too heavy so we lay them down on the ground next to the dining room tree.

Alas, it was Christmas morning!  And the new tradition around here is to have the kids run down the stairs - even though the upstairs is only the master suite and their bedrooms are on the main level ha ha. And of course, they move SO fast that they are always a blur, so I make them freeze so I can take a halfway decent picture.

The kids dove into their stockings.

They get the usual stuff - candy, socks and bathroom/beauty products.  But this year, we gave Grant a Twix bar.  That doesn't seem very special, but he's never had one before because Twix are "processed in a facility that also processes peanuts."  There are so many things he can eat now that he's gone through the full peanut immunotherapy treatments!

Next, we moved into the living room for the main event!

Natalie had already gotten her big Christmas present from us and Nana - tickets to see BTS in Los Angeles. But Grant hadn't - so Todd set up a scavenger hunt to find it!

I captured him mid air after he followed all of the clues to the basement!

He finally got a new gaming PC! And Todd had it all set up so he didn't have to wait for any of that.  This thing is super fast (and super expensive- hooray for Black Friday sales!)

One of Todd's favorite traditions is making a big bacon, egg and cheese on a pretzel roll sandwich!

My least-favorite tradition is cleaning up the war zone in the living room.

BUT... this year I got a Miele vacuum so it made cleanup MUCH easier!  I had one of these vacuums in Germany and I absolutely loved it. It cleans so much better, it's lighter and as you can see, I can even get under the couch with it.

We stayed home for the entirety of Christmas Day and enjoyed our traditional home-cooked Christmas meal.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, broccoli casserole, blueberry Jell-O salad (yes, my family is from the midwest!), rolls and NOODLES!  My mom spent a fortune shipping Reames egg noodles from Florida (they have to be kept frozen) just so we could enjoy this tradition for Thanksgiving and Christmas (because let's face it- this is everyone's favorite side dish!)

But the day AFTER Christmas, we went down to Plymouth to have Christmas with Todd's family.  We all took Covid tests before we went, and all were negative. Phew!

Merry Christmas! Having drinks with KK, Lauren, Helen and GoGo!

We also had another awesome Christmas dinner.  And I finally got to wear my "ugly" Grogu Christmas sweater!

Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard at this picture.  Lauren does NOT seem amused that her brother is laughing so hard that he needs to use her to keep himself upright! I don't even remember what kind of story Gordie was telling here! Lauren is like, "Get me out of here!"

After dinner, we opened presents!

Todd gave his parents a Tovala cooker for Christmas - it is a smart oven that scans a barcode to perfectly cook a pre-made meal. Their website says, "No need to shop, prep, cook, or clean. Instead, use our WiFi-connected smart oven to scan, relax, and enjoy!"  (Can I get one of these???)

KK got us t-shirts from our friends Chip and Dara's brewery down in Virginia!  This is my new favorite t-shirt!

I don't know why, I just loved this picture of Grant, Todd, Croco and I!

And I might have stolen this one from my brother of him with my mom, Greta, James and Hattie! Merry Christmas!  How are my babies getting so big???

Natalie and I also got to join KK, Helen, Grammi and Lauren as we went bridal gown shopping for Lauren's upcoming wedding to Craig!  No spoilers, of course!  

Natalie got to play around and tried on a veil and I just KNOW that I'm going to blink and this will be happening for real (if she can find anyone who can compare to Taehyung from BTS!)

I had to send this one to her dad... I knew he would not be pleased!

After the wedding dress trial run, we all went to Mamma Mia's in the Pinehills for some yummy dinner.

Natalie took a cute selfie of all of us together!

Post-Christmas, we found ourselves hanging out with the Wilmington crew some more - including a dinner at Waxy O'Connor's in Lexington (which I think is actually closed now?)

We had a nice dinner and time spent with Dorothy, Kaitlyn, Michelle, Cooch, Karen and Kern.

I got this for Grant for Christmas and it was hilariously creepy. You know he loves pugs! I think he's a little scared of it though!

My brother also got me the t-shirt on the left for Christmas to add to my Lightning t-shirt collection! GO BOLTS!  Let's make it 3 in a row, Stanley Cup Champs!

Todd took the kids to Ski Ward over Christmas break - Nat needed to get some practice time in!

Not the best conditions, but they said it was ok.

We were killin' it on New Year's Eve - definitely parents of the year with this meal! Pretzels, corn dogs and leftover pizza!

We also enjoyed our FAVORITE New Year's Eve tradition that we picked up in Germany - watching Dinner for One!  "Same procedure as every year, James!"  This short film isn't even in German, but for some reasons, the Germans absolutely love it and it's always a Sylvester tradition.

I hit up WalMart when Nat was skiing one night and grabbed some New Year's garb so we could look THIS cool.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And we're on to 2022!