10 years and a trip to Aruba

Well Jason and I hit our 10 year wedding anniversary last fall on 9/26/19. Pic for attention:

So we were like obviously we need to go somewhere to celebrate ourselves. This blog did not exist when we were on our honeymoon on St. John (which was epic), and we considered going back. But, since we had also been to and loved Aruba (in 2012 and 2015 - I die when I look at Alex in those 2015 ones, but I digress) we decided to make it our destination (our kid-free destination). We got our flights and hotel all on points (why helloooo Ritz Carlton!) and from January 25-30, 2020 this was our...

We had an ocean view hotel room and the whole resort faces due west, so the views and sunsets were literally impossible to stop taking pictures of. From our room:

 

From the beach

And from the main resort balcony

Soooo, imagine all that in a panorama and you can maybe get it. AH-mazing. We just kept saying that over and over, plus "ahhh this is so good", in between big sighs of happiness. See, Aruba has this constant, slight breeze - all day every day - that just bathes you in warm, softly swishing air. I swear my heart rate was about 50 BPM the entire time we were there. It felt so unbelievably relaxing. I barely left my beach chair (psssh, "beach chair" - no. It was a freshly toweled, padded, chaise lounge. :D )

Besides facing west all the time, we rented a car so we switched up our beaches, we paddleboarded, snorkeled, floated, jet-skiied and ate a ton of fish tacos. The food was amazing and the Ritz was simply beyond. We had to take a lot of selfies and honestly these don't even come close to capturing what our days were but, nonetheless:

 

 

You guys, it was just perfect. We are so lucky to have had truly the most amazing five days with each other. We had our little speaker going the whole time, a full bar set up in our room, and our wonderful, could-not-have-done-it-without-you parents taking care of our kids 2,000 miles away. Thank you GG, Grandma and Grandpa for holding down our fort, and to Poppy and Mema for our delicious dinner at Flying Fishbone. Already can't wait for our next anniversary trip. 11 years is a thing, right? :)

A Holly Jolly Christmas

Readers, we had the most lovely Christmas. I mean, really and truly. For the first time ever, we were home on Christmas morning and then stayed home (usually after the Santa craziness we pack up and head to Vermont or New York, depending on the year). But in 2019, our family came to us and we celebrated with Grandma, Grandpa and GG. The gifts were perfect, the boys were happy, the house looked beautiful and we all felt the magic.

There were lots of Decembery things we did (filed under "holiday cheer") but for the first time, the boys never went and saw Santa. They didn't really ask and it didn't seem super important somehow :( We also picked our tree in about 3 minutes: it was the first one we saw, it looked good, done. That's usually a process (and I have, in the past, devoted whole posts to it, like here and here). If you've followed this blog since the beginning, by now you know what Christmas cookie making looks like and that we read Christmas books all month long. I would hold off from posting those, except the boys still watch so intently when we bake:

And now, Ashton is the one that reads the stories :)

Besides that, we went to church on Christmas Eve, had some wonderful meals and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely. Some of my favorite pics:

Reading the Polar Express

Making cinnamon rolls for the morning:

While the children were nestled all snug in their beds...

Santa came and of course his gifts had their own special paper, but there were SO MANY PRESENTS that you could not even tell!

And the main event! I didn't include most of the blurry present-opening pictures. You're welcome.

GG received voluminous hair:

Grandpa got Alabama tickets:

And Alex got his desk :) More below on that.

 Nok hockey:

Time to play

and cook some more:

And we just hung out! It was totally perfect. The boys got a lot of sports stuff and while they did get a Lego set each and some new games, there were really no true "toys". Their lists were pretty difficult this year. Alex wanted, specifically, "a desk with a trash can and lots of white paper." He started asking for that in the beginning of December and never wavered. He even practiced having one with a box.

So I found a desk on Craigslist like I do and had it refinished for him just in time for Christmas. If you want to see the totally adorable video of him opening it, click here. It's now up in his room and he stays very busy while sitting at it. And of course now Ashton wants one.

Anyway we had such an amazing holiday and felt incredibly fortunate for all that we have.

On to the three worst, most awful months of the year, the completely useless January February and March. Such fun posts ahead!