Christmas in March...Why not?

So, this is the promised "Part II" blog, delayed as usual. Here we are, spreading a little holiday cheer in March. I'm sure it much appreciated with all of the gray days.

 

Holiday event one:  Homemade gingerbread house! 

Yes, a completely independent conception from blue print, to construction, to decoration. It was definitely a learning process. Note to self for next year is to decorate the house before we put it together to allow the candy to dry in a horizontal fashion. Gravity poses a problem when you try to adhere the candy when the house is already put together. This is evident in some of our pictures. Also, to be fancy, we gave our house stained-glass windows made with melted Life Savers.

 
Holiday event two:  Christmas! 

 As usual, we spent Christmas Eve with my family:  parents, little bro, big bro and his crew (2 nieces, nephew, and wife).  T'was a good time.  We mixed it up this year and drew names for presents and played "Dirty Santa."  We loaded up with a sweet travel neck pillow, some maple syrup, and wine goodies.  Sam scored a sweet crossbow. 
 
Christmas morning was spent together.  We opened presents, had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of homemade cinnamon roles, bacon, and eggs, and then opened our stockings.  In lieu of the whole going-back-to-school thing, Christmas for us was a little lighter.  The highlights were table tennis, lots of good books, a foam roller, ear and nose hair trimmer (for Sam), and clothing items.  All-in-all we are extremely lucky and love spending our morning together leisurely! 
 
In the afternoon, we headed over to Sam's parents' house for lunch and to keep the festivities going.  The food was delightful as was the company.











Holiday event three:  New Year's Eve!

 

New Year's Eve was pretty low key for us.  We decided to have a night in and cook dinner together.  We made a wine braised beef brisket, kale salad with bacon and dates, and baked mashed sweet potatoes.  Delicious!  After that, we just hung out and watched the movie New Year's Eve (not recommended) and fell asleep at 10:30 on the couch.  We woke up at 11:30, just in time to get ready for bed, see the clock hit midnight, kiss each other HAPPY NEW YEAR, and roll over and fall asleep.  Yeah, that's how we roll.

Holiday event four:  Sam's birthday! 

 

Since Sam's birthday falls on the third, we had a family celebration on the first.  We did his big 32 up right with black-eyed peas, ham, collards, and at the birthday boy's request, a homemade carrot cake.  Sam got an exciting present:  chickens!  We haven't actually gotten them yet, but Sam goes to a class entitled "Backyard Chickens" this week, and we should be getting them around Easter.  We have considered names, but are not releasing those at this time. 

On his actual birthday, I cooked his requested meal of pad thai, and devised a fun birthday scavenger hunt for him!

In other news, over the break, I started a t-shirt quilt.  I got almost finished before classes started back, but once they did, all my creativity and mess got crammed back into the closet.  Hopefully, I will have a day to finish it up, otherwise it will have to wait until next year.  Here is the layout:



Sam had a pretty gnarly beard, and my semester started back up, and it has been consistently busy and keeping me on my toes.  The classes I am taking are Dysphagia, Anatomy and Physiology of the Speech Mechanism, Professional Issues in Communication Sciences and Disorders, Research in CSD, and Language Disorders Preschool.  I am thoroughly enjoying the content I am learning...and I got a stethoscope!  It is hard to believe that midterm time is quickly approaching and the semester is already half way over.  That has been pretty much the extent of what I have been doing.

March will bring some good times:  my birthday, brothers visiting, and spring break getaway to Charleston with Sam's parents.  We are also going to be adamant about using up all of last year's garden stockpile, both frozen and canned goods, to clear the way for the fresh veggies that are in the not so distant future!  Until then, we will be here cuddling cats to stay warm, looking forward to spring time temps!

A note from Sam:
 Well, I don't have a whole lot more to say that hasn't already been eloquently described by my lovely wife.  A few items she forgot to mention are....

1. We finished a 2000 piece puzzle of Washington Crossing the Deleware!  Holy smokes was it crazy hard.  We can slap down a 1000 piece in NO time, but this one took us forever!  It got to the point where it just wasn't fun.  It was all gray and blah.  A cool picture but not a cool puzzle.  But we just HAD to complete it to say we could.  It was a true test of our marriage and resulted in a success....minus about two pieces the cats stole/ate or we lost because we had to constantly move it.  Yeah. During the day we had to move it into the bedroom so the cats wouldn't destroy it.  Ok, so Delilah wouldn't destroy it.  Have you ever tried moving a 2000 piece puzzle?  I don't think so. 

 2.  I've been so lucky that my wonderful wife has let me accompany my dear friend Mathew to TWO Civil War shows.  One in Dalton, Ga, and one in Salisbury, NC.  WOW.  So incredible.  I won't bother with putting too many details here, because if you're like my wife, you probably aren't that interested.  But Mathew and I had a blast.  I was able to pick up a Confederate bayonet and some bullets.  By far the coolest Civil War related thing I've gotten lately is a picture of my great-great-great grandfather, "Devil" Tom Summers, who fought in the Civil War in the 4th NC Infantry.  Receiving this really made my year.

3. Pretty excited about my chicken class.  Pretty excited about gardening.  Pretty exciting about being done with National Boards.  Pretty excited about Charleston.  That's about all for now.  I'll leave you with something else I was pretty excited about, but the wife wasn't.  For my birthday, my wonderful wife let me have a mustache:

 A little side-by-side comparison of my with a mustache and my great great grandfather, John Berry, with a mustache.  "Devil" Tom had one too.  I'm just sayin', they run in the family and it looks pretty swanky.  It's a mustache tradition!