HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And second of all I want to admit that I have been HORRIBLE in keeping this blog updated. Maybe that should be my News Years Resolution. Yeah, that sounds much better than eating healthy or more exercise or something like that lol.

Dan and I spent Christmas in the car. Okay, not really, but the 3+ hour drive each way in 24 hours, it seemed like we were in the car for way too long. But at least Dan was home and didn't have to work. Although the overtime money would've been nice ;-) Just kidding!

Christmas Eve day around 10am we embarked on our journey, our getaway from Jersey, and it felt like we were Santa and Mrs. Claus with the huge amount of presents in the sled -- I mean BMW. We headed to Annapolis where we were going to stay the night and then head to Waldorf Christmas Day. The drive was fairly uneventful. I talked the whole entire way I'm sure. I have no idea where I get that from -- do you Mom?? ;-) We arrived in Annapolis early afternoon and met up with Tom, Jane, Angela, Alex, Grandma and Grandpa Dowell AND the pack of Flopsy, Mopsy and Tanner. We settled in, ran a couple errands with Tom and then arrived back to the house shortly before dinner. We got ready and headed to dinner. I wanted to go to mass at St. Mary's church in downtown Annapolis that night. I can't miss mass on Christmas! Our friends Will and Katrina were going to 9:00pm mass so we decided to join them. St. Mary's is such a gorgeous church. It's not huge so we made sure we got there early. Mass was very nice and somehow very quick. The service started at 9:00pm sharp and we were done by 9:45pm. Pretty impressive considering the large number of people who took communion. After mass we headed back to the house. I went to bed around 11 or so. I certainly couldn't stay up too late b/c I wanted to make sure Santa had enough time to come drop off presents! We woke up early, around 7:00am or so to get started with the gift-unwrapping-festivities and so we could make it down to Waldorf by 10:00am. We ripped through presents and then headed down the road. I kept my new Christmas pajamas on, deciding I would take a shower and all that at my parents house. (Note on Christmas pajamas: every year since my sister Angie and I were little our Grandma Erwin gave us a present that we had to open Christmas Eve. Of course after the first year, we kind of picked up on the fact that it was always pajamas, yeah, we were quick ones. Since Grandma Erwin passed away, Angie and I get our Christmas Eve pajamas from my mom instead. Who knows when the tradition will end?? I guess her and I being around the age of 30 might mean we are getting too old for this tradition, but it always makes us think of Grandma Erwin! And its definitely a tradition that I want to pass on with our children!)

The drive down to Waldorf was fairly uneventful as well. I was tired, but excited to see my family and open some more presents (and take a nice hot shower!)! The car was repacked with all the gifts we had received from Dan's family and still had a couple bags of presents to unload at my parents. We pulled in the driveway around 10am and my sister and her fiance pulled in right behind us (they had come down from Baltimore). My mom had a nice hot breakfast waiting for us! Talk about service lol. Of course my mom is Italian so she really loves feeding people. I think that has rubbed off on me somewhat which Dan really appreciates! We stuffed ourselves with breakfast and then headed downstairs to open more presents. Angie and I are definitely still like little kids! We both sat down right by the Christmas tree, sitting on the appropriate sides -- one side has her presents and the other has mine. Angie and I opened all of our presents, Dan and Jimmy opened theirs, and Mom and Dad opened theirs. We got some more great stuff!!! And everyone seemed to like what we had given them which to me is close to being better than receiving gifts! We hung out for a bit and then headed to Aunt Deb and Uncle Eddy's where all the family was gathering. The food there was great as always and seeing everyone was wonderful as well. After hanging out there for awhile we knew we had to get on the road soon due to the fact that it was going to take us 3+ hours to get home and once we got home Dan and and I still had to exchange the presents we got each other! When we finally arrived home, although we wanted to curl up and relax, we had to unload the car and exchange our presents. We brought all of our loot inside the house and then swapped our presents.

We had a safe trip, having had a great time visiting family and friends, and feeling so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives and feeling so blessed. I can only hope that everyone else had as fabulous a holiday!