Christmas day!

Todd and I had a very low key Christmas - just us and the dogs.  After a November wedding it's hard for people to travel and we felt the same way.

We started the morning off with Denver omelets, a family tradition for my family...

And a peach torte, something Todd requested that his mom makes...

Then we went in to open some presents!  I swear our dogs know what Christmas is.  Todd caught them sniffing around the stockings before we came in for the big unwrap.  There were much clearer photos than this one, but Lulu's ears crack me up and I just had to use it...

Some of the stocking stuffers for the dogs.  These have a stuffed squirrel that squeaks and a multi-knotted rope for some serious tug of war...

Exhibit A...

The also got a new stuffed duck and a bag of giant rawhides.  Giant because Lulu blows through rawhides and we thought these might last longer...

Rigby and Lulu settled in with all their toys...

Next, it was time for us to open our gifts.  A few wedding gifts came in since the wedding, so we tucked them away under the tree to have something to open on Christmas.  We weren't doing gifts, really, to one another because of the wedding and our gift of house renovations...

Todd opening his gift - a new bottle of cologne...

Me opening my "gift" from Todd. An I.O.U. for a Rachael Ray garbage bowl and...a cell phone charger?!?

 Ok, on to the other presents!

We ordered a vintage chandelier from eBay for our stairwell - another home renovation gift.  Isn't it cool?  Too bad it was broken! The cast was cracked and bent.  It was sent back.  DARN!

Lulu wants to be a part of the gift opening...

Our gift from Candice and Timothy!  A Lennox serving platter and cutting board with a beautiful carving knife and fork!  Thanks, Youngs!

From Linds and Nate.  A really cool wine decanter made of recycled, bubbled glass (I love bubbled glass!).  Thanks, Hoyts!

Also from the Hoyts: this lazy Susan table topper with our names and wedding date.  It's made from the end of a wine barrel. Super cool!  Thanks again Hoyt fam!

From my friend Jana and her boyfriend Joel.  An awesom concrete bowl we put on the registry...

Thanks, Jana and Joel!  Oh, Todd...

And that about does it!  Like I said, really low key. 

We hope everyone had as nice a day as we did!

Our Christmas tree

Todd and I finally got our Christmas tree decorated earlier this week!

We've been busy with house renovations (more on that later) and just haven't had a chance to get the tree all decked out. 

We received several wedding ornaments this year, so we started with those.

This set is from Todd's mom Nancy...

This is from Nancy's friend Judy...

This "T" and "K" are from my parents...

And this one is from my friend Jamie in D.C.

Todd putting the angel on top...

Stage one of decorating: lights and angel...

Todd decorating...

Me decorating...

The finished product!  I love sitting and watching the tree with nothing but the Christmas lights on after it's decorated...

I thought Lulu would be really curious about what we were doing when decorating the tree, but she and Rigby just laid there as we worked.  The next day, however, she had to check everything out, starting with one of the candycanes.  She didn't lick, just sniffed...

On to a few ornaments...

Hmmm...back to the candycane...

"Anything under here for me?" 

Sorry, Lulubelle, those are just some wedding presents we recently received and decided to save for Christmas morning since we're not doing gifts to each other this year - except the gift of house renovations! I'm pretty sure, since you've turned into such a good girl, Santa will leave some new toys and treats for you!

Christmas tree hunting

We took the dogs out yesterday to hunt our Christmas tree.

We were supposed to go last Sunday, but Todd had to work. BAH! We considered getting a tree from one of those parking lot places, but I just couldn't.  I mean, if, for some reason, we were in a pinch and had to, I would do that.  But we still had time and I just couldn't go happily to a parking lot for our tree.  Besides, how could we deny little Lulu her first Christmas tree hunting experience?

Our tree cutting permit was for some BLM land about 50 miles out of town, the same area we went last year. 

We traipsed around for quite some time before finding a little patch with some options.  We went back and forth about two trees and finally decided on this beauty...

It's a big one!  But we have 9 foot ceilings and something short and squatty would just look silly.  The trip to the truck.  Isn't that a nice view (including Todd!)...

Here's another photo of the area we were in...

And another...

The snow was pretty deep - most time just up to our knees, but it was to our thighs in a few places!  We considered putting the snowshoes on, but with how powdery the snow was it ended up being manageable...

Me with our tree...

The dogs with our tree.  They both loved getting out in the snow.  I'm glad we didn't get a tree from a parking lot...

And the road out of the woods...it was pretty deep in places but the ol' truck handled it very impressively...

The tree in our living room.  I'm going to make a nice dinner and we'll decorate it tonight.

Happy Easter!

(A little late!)

We didn't do much at all over the weekend, but we did decide to get out and about a bit beginning with a picnic at Pathfinder Reservoir!

Todd took the dogs with him that morning to count sage grouse and I met him at the lake with Subway sandwiches for lunch...

The dogs hanging out with us.  Lulu has the LONGEST tongue...!

She also has the BIGGEST feet!  Look at those honkers...!

Lulu the billy goat contemplating the cliff's edge...

A warden and his dogs...

A public relations girl and her dogs... (ha)

Sunday morning we went to church then had a family photo snapped outside the house...

Happy Easter!

Out with the old

Good bye 2010, hello '11.

I'd share some photos of our New Year's Eve except...Todd and I didn't take any!  I can't believe it.

We had delicious Thai food downtown at Lai Thai with our friends Jeff and Linda.  Then we went to their place and had drinks, snacks and played games.

In keeping with my family's tradition, we turned on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve and watched the ball fall in Times Square.

It was pretty low key, but a lot of fun!

The rest of the weekend was also low key, but there were a couple highlights:

First, I got this - a salad spinner!

I used to make fun of Linds H. for having one, but I have since eaten my words.  I use heads of lettuce instead of the pre-washed and bagged stuff and it is a pain to wash the lettuce and get it dry.  I've been wishing for this for a long while and we finally got one!  2011 is going to be a great salad year!

Secondly, we made my favorite sandwich in all the world - and one of my most favorite meals ever - today for lunch.  Salmon with cream cheese, tomatoes, onions and capers.  Only we didn't put it on a bagel.  We used some brown bread I'd made for our New Year's Day lunch.

There is no place in Casper to get this sandwich, so my only resort is to make it.

I savored every...last...bite.

Mmmmm....

One of my resolutions?  To beg Bagel Makers from Cheyenne and Laramie to put a location in Casper.

Happy new year!