HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Quick update, just wanted to welcome Aaron Patrick to the world and wish him a very happy birthday! I think posting infants pictures on the internet is something the parents should decide if they want done, so no pics for now, but he looks like a happy healthy baby! Welcome Aaron!

(by the way, the fact that his initials are all points bulletin have not escaped me!)

I hope everyone else a happy New Year.

the past few days

I hope everyone had a fun Christmas!

I had a very nice Christmas weekend. I had to work Friday and we got out maybe a half hour early, but whatever. We all had enough stuff to keep us busy. Then I went out to dinner at Sky in Norwood (awesome, but pricey, restaurant) and had our $5 gift exchange. I got lots of nice stuff :) Then I went home and didn't do much, pretty much went right to bed because Saturday morning I went back to work! Everyone thought I was crazy, but if I hadn't gone to work on Saturday I would have been stressing the whole weekend about what I had to do at work. So I put in about 3.5 hours of work, then I met my dad at West Marine, and we braved the SSP. Not a place I want to be on the day before Christmas Eve. We were there for a few hours, but ended up getting my mother some really nice Cape Cod jewelry, that she was really excited about. So good for us.

Saturday afternoon I finally arrive back in Canton and Andrew and I started to clean up and I finished my wrapping... then came the BEST part of the weekend. We went to see Rocky Balboa. What a great movie. I was a little uncertain about no Adrian, but I understood why Sylvester Stallone didn't want her in it. All you have to do is watch Rocky V to see that she didn't age well. Well... that's not true. She did age well. But the point is... she aged. She doesn't have a face full of Botox. She looks her age. But as Rocky and Adrian are only supposed to be in his 50's and she looks like she's about 95, it wasn't going to work. I did miss Adrian, because I don't think Rocky is Rocky without his Adrian, but the movie ended with a "Yo Adrian" so I was happy. "Yo Adrian... We did it! we did it." (tear!) Yeah.... who cries at Rocky? Yup, this kid. Plus Rocky, Jr provided all the wet blanket-ness that Bill Simmons loves so much. Though he did come around.

Anywho, after watching such a fabulous movie. Sunday we got up and didn't do much. We were pretty lazy. I had to go out to CVS to do some stuff, and then my parents came over and Christmas Extravaganza began. I had a pretty good Christmas. I now have a peacoat and a leather coat! Plus I now have a 19" flat panel monitor on my desk instead of that dinosaur I used to have. That was a present for me and Andrew. It was a pretty good Christmas. And we now have 7 movie passes, 5 to National Amusements (aka Randolph) and 2 to AMC (aka Boson Common). I added to my board game collection with scrabble, and now Andrew and I own the first two seasons of The Office, entourage, and Numb3rs. (though we already had Numb3rs, the second one was a Christmas present). We had a pretty fantabulus Christmas!

I have today off (andrew doesn't) and then it's back to work for me. Good thing we have a long weekend next weekend!!

Mary's boychild

Hark now hear the angels sing!

A new King born today

And man will live forever more

Because of Christmas Day!

That's got to be one of my favorite Christmas carol ever. Even though it's not 100% grammatically correct (and you know how that bothers me) I still like. It's kind of okay that they are a little lose with grammar because it's somewhat of a raggae song.

I'm kind of not happy that I have to work tomorrow. Usually I have a nice long Christmas vacation, but Aruba kind of wiped away all my vacation time. But that's okay, it was definately worth it.

I don't know what I am getting for Christmas this year. I'm not done with buying all my presents either. I have two left to buy and then I'll still have about 7 to wrap. I hate wrapping presents. I am so not good at it. But since I like to unwrap presents in wrapping paper and not take them out of a bag, I try to wrap. But since I am running out of time, the last couple may have to be bagged. I'm going to try. Technically I am free all day on Saturday, so I should have enough time. But my whole house has to be cleaned. I mean scrubbed from top to bottom (not that there is more than one level). Andrew and I have just been so busy lately that we've let it go. And my parents are coming over for a bit on Christmas Eve before we go to my family's gathering. So Saturday will be spent cleaning. Well I will spend Saturday cleaning, I have a feeling Andrew will spend Saturday shopping. Which sucks mainly because he cleans the kitchen very well. Maybe I will save the kitchen for him : )

So Sunday begins our Marathon of Christmas. My parents are coming over to see our tree and decorations in our first Christmas in our new place!, and then we go to my aunt's for a little bit of peace and quiet before Nana's. Then it's across the street to Nana's.... where my entire family (well 98% of my entire family) gathers in one not-so-big house. It's actually a fun time. Not as fun as it was when my cousins were all little and we all went and we just went crazy with excitement. That was before my grandfather had his shop downstairs (woodshop) so we all went downstairs and just played there out of our parents' hair. I still enjoy myself, but that magic of being a little kid who believes in Santa (or at least still gets lots of stuff from Santa), playing with all your cousins for the only time all year is irreplaceable. Then after Nana's, its off to another uncle's to wind down from Nana's. Then to bed! Christmas morning we'll get up, open presents, go to Quincy for Christmas Breakfast (sooo yummy), then to Falmouth where my immediate family will do a gift exchange, then finally over to my Grandmother's where we will do Christmas dinner and more presents. By that time, it's time to head home so Andrew can work the next day. Quite the travels!

In case I do not blog until after Christmas, Feliz Navidad!

Stonger than yesterday!

Since it's December and I don't get to carry over any vacation time, I've been using them up. Actually I don't think I have worked a 5 day week since the 2nd week of November. Anyway, now that school is winding up (all I have do to at this point is show up at class tomorrow and then it's another semester down!) I have time to actually devote to the gym. For the next 6 weeks I can actually workout, it's not just a run in, hop on the ellipse for 40 minutes, and run home. So because I have a lot of vacation time to use up, I had a half day yesterday. And because I can now go to the gym and put in some effort, I put my free afternoon to good use yesterday. I spent a good amount of time at the gym, and I did my weight machines AND cardio. At my gym, you can log into each machine. Well each machine they put your infomation into. When you fist sign up, they match you up with a trainer and your trainer sets you up on 8 machines - 4 upper, 4 lower body. If you want more machines, you have to pay for anothter training session. BUT you do not have to be logged into a machine to use it. It's just easy if you are because it tells you what your settings are on that machine, it keeps track of your progress, it tells you what how much weight you should be lifting, it yells at you if you go too slow or too quickly. Personally, I think it's great. Not great enough to pay to get to log-in to more machines, but still, it's fantastic. So I went to log-in yesterday and my account had been frozen. I had to get a trainer to un-freeze it for me. It was a little embarrasing to find out the last time I had actually logged into the system. Now, I don't log-in every time I use it, because sometimes I only have limited time to get through everything. But I hadn't logged in a very very long time. I did my 8 machines - I had to lower the weights, and I couldn't even get through 3 sets of 12 reps. At best I did 2 sets of 12 reps. On some machines I don't even think I could do that much. And then I got on the ellipse - I have no problems with cardio workouts, as I always do that. But after putting my body through weight training hell, I couldn't even get through my entire cardio workout. I thought I was going to die. I came home and sat on the couch for about three hours trying not to throw up. I am so out of shape! But I'm whipping myself back into shape, no more sick for three hours after I work out! Luckily today is not a weight training day, merely a cardio day. :) Which is good because my muscles are still extremely achey.

Tonight I am going to see the Rockettes! :) Should be fun.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!

But I know I'm not going to get one. I just want to ski! I need to move to Colorado. Anyway, Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow. I never got into the Christmas spirit this year. I blame it partly on the fact that it been an average for 60 degrees for the last few weeks (except two days of bitter cold last week). I have a tree (though it's not decorated yet, hopefully tonight!), Christmas lights, I've been Christmas shopping, but I'm still not there. I don't think I'll be really into it again until I am done with school. It's hard to get all into Christmas while studying for finals and writing papers.

So this is Christmas

And what have you done

Another year over

And a new one just begun

So since I'm not dwelling on Christmas, I will move to New Year's. I'm actually not looking forward to New Years this year. Mostly because I don't want 2006 to end. 2006 was a really great year for me. I made the best of a really crappy ski season last year and got some decent days in, I bought the condo, got a promotion and a decent raise, I got married, I survived a 40 hour trip to Aruba, more importantly I spent 8 days in Aruba, I had a really great summer and got some good beach days in, even my most hated season, fall, wasn't bad. And now it's over. 2007 will not be as good. I'm not getting married. I'm not going to Aruba. Who know how often I will get to go skiing and go to the beach. I'm not forseeing any promotions next year - which means I can look forward to a possible cost of living raise, and that's about it. There are no tropical vacations coming up. In fact there are NO vacations coming up. And I don't even get any time off from school this summer - After I go back in January, I go straight through till NEXT DECEMBER. God I hate school. But that is a different blog. So 2007 is guaranteed to not be as good as 2006. I don't even want to celebrate the passing of 2006. Plus in 2007 I will turn 26! ugh.

So, I have no desire to celebrate the passing of 2006. Nor am I feeling very Christmassy. Bah Humbug.