I know it's been a while, but we've been busy working and enjoying the holidays, so here's my attempt to bring you all up to speed in our lives.
I finally finished my out of town work and have a funny story to share about it. Now when I'm all by myself (in Vegas, nonetheless), I am a little more cautious when I'm out and about. So, on the Thursday night before Christmas, when I opened the door to my hotel room, I noticed that none of the lights were on. Usually, at least one of the lights gets left on by the cleaning people, a gesture that I appreciate, but this night it was completely dark. To add to that, the light from the hallway drew my attention to a card on the bench at the end of the bed. It had "To Our Guest" written in neat cursive on it. I decided that the hotel decided to leave nice holiday cards for their guests that were traveling close to Christmas... Well, as I reached for the card, I heard the closet door burst open behind me and someone grabbed me!!
Now for a little more information... We had planned to have Shane meet me in Vegas on the Friday before Christmas so we could finish the drive to Salt Lake on Saturday morning. Well, little did I know, but Shane decided to come a day early to surprise me. He was hiding in the closet after I called him on my drive back to the hotel (something I did every night). Apparently his phone rang right as I opened the door. He silenced it, but was convinced that I had heard it. I guess his original plan was to wait for me to read the card before he came out (so I knew it was him), but he decided to jump out since the surprise was already blown. Well, I hadn't heard the phone, so I was terrified, but then very excited to see Shane standing there. Once my heart slowed down, we went out and treated ourselves to the MGM Grand Buffet. It was so fun having him there. The next night we wandered around Vegas and then headed to Salt Lake on Saturday.
We were lucky to be able to spend Saturday through Wednesday in Salt Lake at my parents' house. We tried our hardest to get out and see people, but we were very limited since the holidays are also filled with family activities. We were able to see baby Vera once more before Jared and Jessie head to Bosnia for the next four months (they actually left this evening...). It was fun to be back at home and hanging out with old friends. It was even fun to see the snow (although it was nice to get back to our snow-free land in the end). I got out one night with Carly, Lahdan, and Natalie. We had a big family breakfast with my dad's family. We had our usual Christmas Eve festivities with the Smoots. We even spend Christmas evening with the Castles. We wished we would've had more time to see everyone, but it just wasn't possible.
We had to come back on the 26th because Shane had to work Thursday and Friday. I still had the days off, so I was able to reclaim my house from the layer of dust that built up during my month of travel. It was so nice to have some time at home and know that I didn't need to pack up to leave again in a day. We also got to spend some time with the Bakers while they were down here. It was so fun just hanging out with them and playing games. Except for the venue (and the presence of Megan's parents), it almost felt like we were back at Wymount!!
Shane's been busy around our house since we've been back. Thanks to some generous presents from both of our parents, our home improvement power has been increased! Since returning home, Shane has painted every door in the house, replaced all the doorknobs and deadbolts in the house (doorknobs add up fast!), and sanded and stained the cabinets in our guest bathroom. My parents are coming down here for my dad's work in about 2 weeks and he's making a push to get things done so they can see everything he's done so far. I think my mom's going to be impressed at the progress we've made!!
I went back to work on Monday of this week. I've just been working on random projects for people from our Phoenix office. It's been a nice way to ease back into work. I noticed today that all of my traveling helped me appreciate the amount of time I actually do have each night after work. I got so accustomed to only have one day a week at home that I now appreciate the 4 hours I have each day between when I get home and when I go to bed!
This post is long, but I wanted to add one more thing!! Today, we got an awesome sink for our guest bathroom. Thanks to some great connections, we got a great deal on a designer sink from Linkasink. Now we just have to find some good counter tops to go with it!!
Well, that's our news for now. We're just back to our normal life of working...and Shane working on the house on the weekends. I'll try and put up some new pictures from our break, but I'm at Tom's house so I don't have our pictures.
