Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Christmas...Almost Here!

Talk about a busy month!  Tim and I have been very busy this holiday season!  December 9th we went to a Ugly Sweater Party that our friends Jennifer and Charlie were putting on.  There will be pictures to come!  We had a great time with lots of laughs.  The following weekend we headed to Des Moines for my company Christmas party.  I had been dreading the drive but it wasn't too bad, and as usual, I had a great time.  Working from home is great and I'd like to keep doing it for as long as I can but it's always nice to visit the office to get recharged.  This year it seems like busy season turned into busy year.  Doesn't feel like we had much of a down time with all of the 8955-SSA issues and the new DOL Fee Disclosure requirements.  Oh well...makes the days go fast. While in Des Moines we stayed with Joey and Amanda.  Elle loved the sleep over!  We spent our morning playing restaurant before we had to leave town.

That Saturday night we decided to do a date night as we've been so busy that date nights have been somewhat pushed to the back burner.  I decided I want to go to St. Paul to skate at the Wells Fargo Ice Rink.  It's an outdoor rink that's free to Wells Fargo Bankers.  Lucky for us we're Wells Fargo Bankers!  Here's a little video of the action!


 Rice Park is BEAUTIFUL in the winter...I'm not sure how they do the lights but there are SO many of them.  It's a must see. 


 Julie gave us their old furniture for Christmas.  I love it.  It's a lot better quality than our other furniture was and with it not being a large sectional really opens up the space. 



Friday we're heading home for Christmas with the Schmit/Secory clan.  Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Christmas Cheer

Tim and I went back to Clear Lake last weekend for Christmas By The Lake 2011.  We had a great time and it was such a relaxing weekend!  It started out Saturday morning with me heading over the Mason to help my mom get ready for the Henkel Christmas Party and around noon I was back to start the Xmas Festivities.  They had tons of events going on down town on Main Street along as in several of the stores.  We decided the Friday before that we wanted to enter the Chilli Cook Off and good thing we did!  Can you believe we took home 2nd place? 
Did I mention that Clear Lake got their first 6 inches of snow on Saturday?  It was truly a very Christmas Spirit filled day.  After we dropped off our Chilli we had a few beverages as the VFW, walked down and had some s'mores.  We went down and tried everyone's Chilli after that and headed home for some time in the hot tub before heading back down for the Cook Off results and fireworks.  The fireworks were amazing!  We headed home on some not-so-great roads that Sunday morning and relaxed the rest of the day.