Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!! Better late than never, right? My goal was to update the good old blog before mid-month and technically I made that goal. Now I realize the goal I set was pretty lax but whatever! Here I am!

I do want to apologize to my handful of faithful blog readers in advanced because I am quickly realizing that planning a wedding takes a lot of time. And even if you don't intend on having an elaborate affair, even the basics take time. So in the next 100 days until the wedding, much of my free time will be devoted to taking care of those 100,000 details that need to be decided.

But I know that 2012 is going to be an awesome year! I'm fully confident of it!

Let me see if I can catch you up in the past few weeks....

I worked the week before Christmas... mainly waiting for Congress to figure out the whole payroll tax extension thing. I'll be honest, I've already forgotten 75% of the details that were being fought over even though it hasn't been that long. I figure I'll read up really quickly to refresh my memory the next time the story comes up. It happens every year it seems. Congress has to finish up business before recess. POTUS can't go to Hawaii until it happens. And I get stuck working until right before Christmas.

However, right before POTUS left, he did what he did last year and came and shook our hands before getting on the chopper. He did the same thing last year but this year it was much warmer.

Brian and I left later that evening to head to Roanoke to spend Christmas with my family. Before I go any further, let me reiterate that I love, love, love my family. Love them. Everyone was there and I was so glad to get to see Katherine and Mark and Nolan. We had a wonderful time with everyone. There were many happy memories made and no drama. But it was anything but quiet and relaxing. Any household of eight adults, an 8 year old and two 2-year-olds and a dog is a hopping, active place. Ours was no exception. We had so much fun playing with the kids and hanging out with everyone. Maybe it's because I'm old but it wore me out!

I'll update in the coming days with more pictures but my nieces and nephew are the most adorable creatures on earth. Seriously, they are. They all love Brian (I don't blame them!) and he loves them too! We just had a great time!

I think my most favorite memory was on Christmas Eve when we were trying to do our family Christmas Eve tradition of singing carols around the piano and reading the account of Jesus's birth from Luke 2. The two little ones were a bit restless, to say the least. It was past their bedtimes and crankiness was somewhat prevailing. But I put them on the piano bench with me and we sang carols and Christmas songs. They sang their hearts out to Silent Night and to Frosty the Snowman and of course, Jingle Bells. But their little voices were so incredibly precious!

Spending Christmas morning and watching it through their eyes was wonderful. It reminded me a lot of my childhood since many of the traditions are the same as what we did!

Katherine and her family and Brian left the madness on Monday and I had a few extra days to spend with the rest of my family. Cayton and I had one day together where we went to get our nails done, try on flower girl dresses and we saw the Muppets Movie. It was just quality time with my family and I wouldn't trade it for anything!