A Sight To Behold

Warning: Image may cause extreme feelings of shock and awe,

followed by jealousy.

What you are seeing is not a trick, this image is REAL and it occurred in the Slater home on Thanksgiving day 2010. Yes ladies and gentlemen, these are the men of the family actually CLEANING up after the meal. Dishes, trash, the works. It was truly a sight to behold and probably won't happen again until say, Mother's Day or some holiday requiring gratitude to the ladies in the family in the form of domestic work.

All joking aside, we had a great Thanksgiving with lots of food and some good pumpkin pie at the Gill homestead followed by our tradition of going to the movies. Later that night however, the fun and games were over and it was ON.

What am I talking about? BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING OF COURSE.

If my family weren't readers of this blog I could disclose all the great deals we got but, alas, as they DO read this so I can't tell you. We did snag a great artificial Christmas tree for $100ish, and got our first stockings. The lines were insanity and it was 26 degrees and snowing. Somewhere between 3:30 and 4am I began to wonder if frost bite and a possible amputation of my frozen limbs were worth it. At 7:30am when we finally went to bed I'd wondered if we would ever do it again. But it WAS worth it, ho boy was it, because we saved right around $500 in total. We stayed within the budget but got everyone things that would normally cost double to triple more. I'd say we did pretty good and I regained feeling in my hands by Friday night :)

Here are some pictures of our Christmas tree and presents all wrapped up and ready to go!

A wide shot of our tree.

One with the lights off, of course!

Our first ornament we ever purchased together before we were even engaged at Disney in 2009.

presents!!!

our stockings!

and in case I didn't convince you get excited,

then check out the presents!!!!

Christmas is only 27 days away!

Did YOU snag any great Black Friday deals?

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The Lansing Move!

What a week! Now that I am finally sitting in our new [temporary] home I can take a breath. It started with news that a dog very dear to the Slater family, as well as my husband had cancer and would have to be put to sleep for her good. On top of that, the stresses of moving did not elude the husband and I and nerves were tested and lessons in patience and forgiveness were learned. (UGH!) Add to that the death of a mattress, vacuum and the mystery of the missing Calphalon pots... let me explain.

It all started with a pleasant breakfast...

This is husband's serious look.

So after this breakfast things went awry. For whatever reason, husbands (in general) have boxes and boxes and boxes of cords and plugs and cables and WHATEVER. So while I packed all the REAL stuff my husband wrapped and re-wrapped his cords. Waste of time? Yes. Helping me? No!

Fast forward to the drive to Lansing. I drove separately, and had a very quiet, uneventful drive. My husband, father-in-law and his brother-in-law rode in the other SUV with the trailer attached. Their drive? Not so uneventful...Someone might not have been paying as much attention as they should and before you knew it BAM, they ran over someones mattress that had fallen out in the middle of the highway. They hit it going at least 55 (if not they would have hit a car)... did they stop? NO! They just kept driving and hoped no boxes had fallen out of the trailer... not too long after that the same someone (I am not going to name names here) wasn't paying attention and hit and flew over railroad tracks at 70mph, causing the vacuum to go flying out and busting into several pieces. --I wish I would have taken a picture to show you. So after all of that we got to Lansing and unpacked everything and after getting to the last box I still hadn't found two of my [prized] Calphalon pots and all the lids. I could only assume that the box with those inside had gone flying out in the mattress-RR track incidents. I know you are about to cry, so I will not draw the story out and I will just let you know that after two nights of NIGHTMARES about not being able to cook pasta or boil water that I DREAMT about their location in a box we didn't think to check. Lo and behold when I woke up the next morning I went straight to that box and THERE THEY WERE. The day was saved and I did a little dance at 8:30 in the morning. And thus ends the story of our first ever move together. All I can say is, thank goodness we didn't kill each other :)

Here are a few pictures of our new digs--

The dining table, please note my cute new place mats and napkins.

Half of the kitchen...

Part of the living room...I don't know how we could have lived if they didn't give us that fake tree in the corner. (gag!)

More pictures soon, I would have put a picture of the bathroom up but things like THIS go on there and it is just too silly for words. In other news, Black Friday in t-minus 72 hours! Get those credit cards in swiping position!

In closing, this blog is dedicated to the sweet moose-dog Sadie :

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Whoa, Baby!

Holy shnikes! Someone nominated my blog HERE!!

Voting begins in three days.... woooo!!!

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Indoor Swimming Olympic Champion

Today marked day 1 of packing up the apartment for our move this weekend. As guessed, husband did anything and everything to keep from doing any actual packing. Please see above photo. Tomorrow we'll try it again. For now, we are sitting with bellies full of olive garden and having movie time.

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Hello Lansing

It is officially official, thank goodness, because I have been wanted to talk about it since the possibility presented itself. Husband and I are moving to Lansing for his first rotation in the great adventure of travel therapy! We are glad because we are going to be within driving distance for Thanksgiving, Christmas and both of our birthdays! I found this picture of the capitol building during Christmas--

So, the job begins the 22nd and we will be moving the week previous to get settled and figure out Lansing and all that. This is exciting in its own right because that means new hole in wall restaurants to find, cute shops to discover and the best part is that they have a cooking school that gives classes at night or on the weekends. You can bet your boots that THIS GIRL will be attending at least one and then dragging husband to a couples cooking class on a weekend. Very excited about this! Updates to come!

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