Thursday, December 20, 2018

A Week of Surprises & Festive Fun

Another whirlwind of a week has come and gone! It really feels like the closer we get to the end of the year the fast time flies. There's just so much that needs to get done! This past week was no different.

The first major thing of note happened last Thursday when I came home to a mysterious Amazon package. All of my gifts that I had ordered online were accounted for, but I wasn't sure if I had ordered something and forgot, or that Brett sneakily ordered me something for our anniversary the next day (he swore he didn't -- I was skeptical). I finally opene dup th ebox and it turned out to be What If It's Us by Adam Silvera & Becky Albertalli sent from my good buddy Michael! It was such a surprise and so fun to come home to that after a long day of work!



Brett and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on Friday (!!!) and as we're trying to save up for the next step of our life (hopefully moving closer to Boston within the next year), we still wanted to celebrate, so we went out for a yummy dinner at a local Japanese restaurant for delicious sushi and scorpion bowls (our scorpion bowl was called the Godzilla - amazing). It's so wild that's it's been 6 years since our first date and it was great to have a chance to spend some time just the two of us before hoping right back into the insanity of the holiday season.



Saturday we went out to Brett's family's house for their annual holiday get together for food, drink, family, and a gift exchange! We had such a fun time hanging out with everyone. Everyone really enjoyed the gifts we got them (Sophia LOVED her books! I may or may not be conspiring to turn her into a little book worm... ðŸ˜‡


The biggest surprise of the evening was when Brett brought out a gift for me from EVERYONE, and it turns out that everyone came together and got me a NINTENDO FREAKING SWITCH for Christmas! ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­ðŸ˜­ If you read this year's Dear Santa post, you'll know this is one of the items that I would have LOVED to receive for Christmas this year. And welp... I got my Christmas wish! I am so grateful for everyone who came together to give me this extremely generous gift. I've already been playing it a bunch and I can't wait to continue!


This week has been my last week of work before we head down to Florida tomorrow (!!!) and as predicted it has been hectic AF. I tried my hardest on Sunday to get a ton of things done (groceries, editing, pre-filming, packing, etc.) but I was battling feeling kind of dizzy throughout the day and had to take lots of breaks to lay down. UGH. Always so frustrating when you don't feel well but also have a to-do list that's a mile long!


This week was packed with holiday festivities including two holiday parties, a night of making SO MANY COOKIES, a cookie swap (for the aforementioned cookies) and a festive readathon, all while trying to get mentally and physically prepared for taking nearly two weeks away from home over the holidays. WHEW. It's been a lot, but it's also been so fun in the mean time! Usually the busy-ness of the season really stresses me out, but this year I really seem to be enjoying it. (Although, not gonna lie, now that I've had time to breathe this afternoon the anxiety has been knocking on my mental door. 😣)

My TBR pile for the Christmas at Hogwarts readathon that is happening this week.

Blue circle: Lupita being *real* comfortable under the blankets
Red circle: Brett hanging on for dear life to the edge of the bed
Lupita's really pushing her boundaries when she sleeps in bed with us recently 
😂

Enjoying one of my reads for Christmas at Hogwarts ♥️

I made chocolate covered Oreos for our staff Christmas party, both white and milk chocolate. The white chocolate are above. They were a huge hit with both my staff and Brett! ðŸ˜‚
You can find the recipe I followed here!
It's always so hard to say goodbye to Lupita and Poppy when we have to leave for a long period of time.
We always miss them so much! This is the cuteness we had to leave behind this morning... 
😭

Today was my last day of work before a beautiful 12-day vacation! We're flying out of Boston tomorrow morning, so instead of driving all the way back to our place in central MA tonight just to drive all the way to the airport in the morning, Brett and I thought it would be smartest for us to stay with a friend in the city instead, which means he came to work with me today! I tend to get into work about an hour early as to beat traffic, so we went to one of my favorite breakfast spots in the area called In a Pickle in the time we had before the work day started.

My epic waffle at In a Pickle this morning. Leslie Knope would be proud. 
After breakfast we headed to the office, where I gave him a tour of the building that I work in and he got to meet my staff for the first time which was so much fun! He's been hearing all about my new job and my new staff for months now so I was happy he got the chance to come to campus with me for a day.

And he came on such a fun day as well! Our entire division did a Cookie Swap, which I had never participated in before, but was actually a lot of fun! The idea is that each person brings in a bunch of cookies of their own recipe, then we all set out our cookies and we get to take a variety of cookies from everyone else! We wound up with SO MANY MORE COOKIES than we brought, which was weird because I still have an entire box of cookies from what I made left over. ðŸ˜‚ Either way, it was a fun festive activity that I had never done before, so I was glad I got to participate.



I brought Peanut Butter Fudge No-Bake Cookies, which are some of my all time faves. I forgot to snap a photo for the blog, but you will be able to see them in my Happy Vlogidays Week 3 Vlog (which should go live this weekend) AND you can find the recipe I used here! It's actually super easy and produces the most delicious peanut butter chocolatey goodness you can imagine. YUM.

And that catches us up to right now, as I sit on our friend's couch typing this post and Brett snoozes next to me. I'll be waking him up in a bit so we can order dinner, but not before I get some Christmas at Hogwarts reading done. I may even pop open the champagne my director gifted me and sneak some of the cookies we swapped from this afternoon. The less I have to carry on the plane, the better, right? ðŸ˜‰ 

Like I mentioned, we'll be flying down to Florida in the morning to spend Christmas with my parents. I'm SO looking forward to seeing them, Kiwi, and Mikey, and getting some sunshine. It is much needed! It'll be such a great holiday and I'm so happy it's here. ðŸŒž 

What are you doing this weekend? Have any plans for the last few days of the year?
Let me know in the comments!


LINKS I LOVED THIS WEEK

Grasshopper Brownie Cookies from Oh My Veggies!

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