quirky quips, not faux everyone.: we made it through the Christmas season! Happy 2013!

so much has been happening lately - i haven't had a moment to blog about a single thing.

first things first: two extremely awesome holiday prizes...

1. james very unexpectedly gave me the most amazingly beautiful -and perfect!- diamond stud earrings for Christmas. He gave them to me on the Friday night before the whole Christmastravaganza kicked off, so that would be Friday, Dec., 21st. We were having a little happy hour at the W Hotel when he pulled the gold box out of his pocket and I almost slid out of my chair because I was so excited! I was honestly so speechless, i couldn't even formulate the proper, and much deserved, "thank you, you are the most awesome person evahhh!" I will try to get a pic posted of them.

2. over this past weekend (Jan. 5th), after a couple days of stalking this poor creature, we got a dog!! We rescued this spunky young thang from the Golden Valley Humane Society and so far I am MORE than pleased with how amazing he is! I think we are naming him Nash, which is short for Nashville...which is really where James and I started our whole "adventure" in life together. cute, huh? Either Nash or Eddie or Archie. So far he seems to respond well to Nash. Anyway, I will also try to include a pic of him. The only background information we have is that he was sent to Minnesota from a shelter in Alabama, he is a shepherd mix and is about 2 years old. Once we brought him home we found him to be house broken (YAY!), pretty obedient (he knows "sit," "no," and "down." he also walks very well on a leash - hooray!), and is super cuddly! so far he has been a lot of fun and really seems to just want to be loved. OK, I can do that!!

so aside from the earrings and the new doggie, we've been busy with three or four Christmas celebrations in Mpls, one road trip to Oklahoma to see James's family, and now we are just trying to recover from all of the mayhem we've been trying to live through over the last three weeks. I think we made it!

now I have my eyes set on training Nash to not jump on the couch (sadly!! I like him up there, but really it's not sanitary!), I would like to teach him to run with me on a leash (this may be better off waiting until Spring), and fetch. so far he isn't too thrilled with any of the toys i've brought home for him. he loves to move my gloves and boots around the house, without chewing them, of course/thank God!, but he doesn't like the ball or rope toy or stuffed animals. what's up with that!?

another fun thing we have on our horizon is heading to Fort Myers in early March to celebrate my Grandpa's 80th birthday! OWW! I cannot wait!!! secrets: i already umm, accidentally bought a new swimsuit for it! it's just from Target, but...I could not resist! We are really excited - I probably am way more pumped than James, but that's because he has never been to Ft Myers so he doesn't know what to get so excited for, other than the beach! My grandparents are SO cute down there and have such wonderful neighbors - it is just a blast to hang out with them and let them show off their home to us! Love them so much.

I'll post a few pics from the last couple weeks. Hopefully I can get better ones of Nash - all the ones I have are either really dark or blurry!

thanks for hangin' with me during my extended absence. Happy 2013!