Proud members of the Beer of the Month Club!

Every Christmas for the last 10 years or so my cousins and I have been doing a Secret Santa gift exchange. As husbands are now adding to the mix they have started to participate too. Every year the gifts get better and better and this year my fabulous cousin Jenny gifted my husband with what may be his favorite gift of all time....a membership to the beer of the month club. She's awesome.

We knew that the first shipment wasn't due til the end of January and between work and life we all but forgot that it was coming. Well this past Wednesday a package showed up on our front doorstep for Todd. Thinking it was his school books for his next class, Todd deemed the box unimportant to open until absolutely necessary, put it aside and went on with his day. When I came home from work and asked about the box, I was given the same school book theory, also deemed it uninteresting and moved on with my day. Flash forward to this Saturday, while cleaning the house Todd got around to opening his box and lo and behold...BEER! He was SO excited and incredibly upset that he had neglected his beer shipment. We received 4 different types of micro brews, 3 of each kind. It was so cool!

That night, armed with our perfect pint glasses we sampled away. Thank you so much Jenny! You made our whole weekend!

Our Selection

Delish!

A very happy Todd :)

Welcome to the North Pole.

Ok, I know we aren't actually in the North Pole but if it wasn't for the lack of reindeer, elves and a certain jolly St. Nick you could have totally had us fooled. Its snowing...again...and apparently we are supposed to get 6-8 inches and then later some freezing rain....oh goodie!

This morning I woke up as I have a many times this winter...in the midst of a blizzard. Hooray. Lucky for me, right before the anxiety of attempting to drive to work set in, my sweet husband burst through our front door and announced he had come home to take me to work. Apparently my last attempt at blizzard driving was still fresh in his head. Now I have never been the damsel in distress type of person but I really do not like driving in these conditions and if he continues to cook me breakfast on top of taking me to work like he did this morning then I'll take it! ::bats eyes at hubs:: He spoils me.

So now I sit here at work staring out the window at the 3+ inches that have already accumulated and wonder if they will close my office. I can't wait to be in the Caribbean in 2 weeks. Some sun, warmth and a frosty drink with an umbrella is just what we need. :) ::sighs::

Bleh

My chauffeur

Showing off my kicky snow boots

Off to work :(

1 beer, 2 beer

Tonight we, along with our friends Amy and Mike, decided that we really haven't been spending enough time getting to know our local breweries. So off we went to go learn about the rich history of our local brew, Newport Storm. Ok, who are we kidding, they promised to give us free beer! Yay!

Newport Storm has an ongoing thing where every Friday night at 6pm, they open their doors to the public and serve samples of their beer for free. As far as we are concerned this is the best gig in town and we are horrified that it took us a year to figure this out. Anyhoo, there is not much to the brewery and the tasting room is basically a cold warehouse but let us not let that deter from the fact that they are giving away free beer. We had such a fun time and we can't wait to take our family back here on their next visit. ::waves at the fam::

Cheers!

Cheers!

Merry Christmas...Again!!

Today Todd and I came home from work and found that a big box had been delivered. On further inspection we found that it was full of Christmas gifts from Seattle! We are seriously spoiled. We had such a great time opening them. Thank you so much Don, Barb, Brian, Sandra, Kara and Dave. We are so sorry we couldn't open these with you!!

Oh whats inside?

Yea new fabulous pants!

Please excuse me, I had just come home from the gym.
OOOO New Cookbooks!!!

I can't tell you how much he needed these! :)

Fabulous lotion. It smells so good.

OOO Twilight

The excitment builds

Yes, he's a dork but he's a cute dork :)

A WII!!!!!!! We are SOOO spoiled!!

Ok, ok, ok, ok, first thing is first, put on my new pants, then new socks, then play Wii

Sounds good honey...I'm going to read for a few

He's addicted

Thank you so much! We love you all!

Happy New Years!

Happy New Year!

We were so excited when we touched down in Providence on the 29th to see that all the snow from our disastrous travel attempts had melted. I am no longer enamored with snow. Quite frankly I would like it to just leave us alone...at least until it can agree to no longer mess with my travel plans. ::raises fists to the clouds::

Anyhoo, in typical New England fashion, the snow could care less that I'm annoyed and came again in full force on New Years eve. I was happily working away until I realized it was lunch time. I was faced with 2 choices. 1. Drive in the snow to get lunch or 2. Starve. Seeing that hungry Shan= cranky Shan, I decided that a little snow would not stand between me and my next meal. Even though there was blizzard outside, I bravely walked out to my semi buried car. From there you can probably guess what happened. I drove out of the parking lot and promptly slid off the road. OOPS. ::smacks head:: Ok, ok, not smart. Luckily I was able to maneuver my car into another parking lot about a quarter mile from my company. Lunch was no longer important. There I waited patiently, shaking my head for my stupidity, waiting for my sweet husband to come rescue me. He is such a hero.

By the time Todd arrived and had dug both me and my car out of the snow (he really is a hero)work had called to say they had closed due to weather and we were free to go home. Phew. So we ditched my car and headed back to our house. Along the way, shocked that I risked death for food, Todd decided to give me a snow driving lesson. He went over the basic rules of stopping, speed, what to do in a slide and then pulled over to let me demonstrate my newly learned skills. I was ready. Well unfortunately the lesson turned out to be brief for after sliding through the first stop sign I was promptly declared unqualified to drive in the snow. Oops. ::looks at scared hubs::

Once Todd recovered and took back the driver seat we safely made it home and decided to spend New Years there this year. After all, snow is much more pleasant (read: safe) when you are sipping on a glass of wine in your warm home with your cute hubs (he's such a hero).

Hope everyone had a great New Years!

California....knows how to party....

WOO HOO we made it out of New England! After weeks (ok, 4 days) of trying Todd and I finally got on an airplane and to our astonishment...it actually left the ground! ::claps:: If there is an award for holiday travel perseverance, I definitely think we should be in the running. ::takes a bow::

We ended up landing in California just around midnight on Christmas Eve and jumped into a week of parties and celebration. We had such a good time. We have so much fun hanging out with my sis, her husband, Adam and my folks and I loved being in a place that didn't have snow!

We are still so bummed that we couldn't make it to Seattle. Todd's family was never far from our thoughts, mother nature just had other plans, I guess. :( We will get there soon!

Cute family on Christmas eve.

Opening our gifts on Christmas morning, we were very spoiled.

The boys playing with their new GPSs

Hanging at Grandma's on Christmas day.

Grandma with all the grandkids

Cute grandma

Off to Disneyland! Its been a tradition for years to go to Disneyland at Christmas. I was such a spoiled kid!

Cheeky hubs on Tarzan's treehouse.

With my moms. Excuse the black teeth we were drinking red wine at the Disney winery.

Aren't they a beautiful couple?

Silly boys at California Adventure. They are too cute.

I wish we could do the whole week again. With all the flights we booked and all the waiting in airports it was so worth it. I would also like to thank the fine crew at Southwest Airlines. You guys seemed to pull off what no other airline was capable of by flying us out of RI. Now if I can just convince United to give us back our miles. ::sighs::

Snow Days!

Since we decided to forgo our daily trip up to Logan Airport we thought we might as well just enjoy the snow!

Hello!

Toddi making a snow angel

Building a snowman

Very handsome hubs

Our snowman