A Weekend Visitor & Our Wintery Adventures

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My niece Carrie (who looks nothing like me, as evidenced from the following pictures) came to visit me from Maryland this past weekend.

And it was awesome!

We visited Stokoe Farms where we strolled among the Christmas trees, threw snowballs, made snow angels, enjoyed a fire, cookies, and hot cocoa, and cuddled up to some sweet animals…

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We (very uncharacteristically for both of us!) treated ourselves to a wonderful afternoon of luxurious gel manicures and utterly relaxing massaging pedicures at Coldwater Salon & Day Spa with a Groupon deal we scored…

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We tried Furoshiki for dinner, and it was so good…

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We went to a holiday party….

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We also saw A Christmas Carol at Geva…

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Then wore ourselves out trampolining at Skyzone…

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We ended the weekend with blizzards at Dairy Queen, an oven-fresh dinner of creamy mac n’ cheese, and curled up with dimmed lights, some hard ciders, and a bunch blankets for an evening showing of Frozen!

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What a fun, whirlwind weekend of wintery goodness! :)

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Parties Thrice!

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First, there was the Geva holiday party with an open bar, delicious appetizers, tasty dinner, a ton of raffle prizes, and, dare I say, the best company holiday gifts ever….Geva snuggies for all! Which went over about as off-the-wall amazing as you would expect. People went nuts! I also won a very much appreciated $75 spa gift card in our staff raffle. So, I’d say this was a highly successful night!

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Next up was a white elephant party with some of my favorite friends! There was food galore, lots of laughter, hilarious white elephant gifts for all, and I made a Firebowl (hot mulled wine, sugar cubes, and 100 proof southern comfort lit on fire), which was a complete hit! I brought a pineapple for my white elephant gift and came home with a party game and an amazing ladybug hot water bottle, both of which I was beyond thrilled to receive! But I think Tate totally won the night with her awesome hostess skills in her fantastic new loft-style apartment and with the evening’s most hilarious white elephant gift…a printer! Though the Lisa Frank calendar and my pineapple were pretty spectacular as well!

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Finally, there was a Christmas party with some new friends from church. We decked the halls, decorated the tree, ate so much food, enjoyed a second Firebowl (I’m spreading it all around the city!), and played a couple rounds of the party game Taboo. It was calm but merry and bright!

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A few weeks ago I also stopped by First Friday at Writers & Books to pick up my Blind-Date-With-A-Book! I selected an 18th century Scottish adventure, which turned out to be Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, Kidnapped. It was really fun and exciting to select a wrapped mystery book based on only three clues! I can’t wait to read it! And the Writers & Books book-tree? The best! I love it every year!

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There was also our book club meeting for Wild by Cheryl Strayed. A blast, as always!

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And finally, here’s a few holiday-themed reads you’ll kick yourself if you miss, because they’re completely hilarious and really outstanding!

The 2014 Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog (there’s some language in this one, but unless you’re easily offended by some choice words, it’s absolutely worth the read!).

All The Things Kids Wanted for Christmas in the Early 1900s (my favorite is the second to last on page 2! This is pure gold!)

HONY for the Holidays (this is the true spirit of Christmas and what I’m so glad to see still exists in the world today, because it is much needed by so many! What a wonderful world!)

And then there’s this love bug, invading the costume shop again:

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Happy holidays! :)

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Much To Be Thankful For

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Thanksgiving in Chicago!

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Above all, I am thankful every single day for these people and for this life.

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