Well I can safely say we held true to our new years resolution for 2011. This past year has been quite the journey testing out new workout programs and pushing ourselves to get into the best shape possible. We are now more aware of what we eat and strive to do at least 30 min of working out 6 days a week. 2011 was a great start to a well-balanced lifestyle.
And now onto 2012. Reid will look forward to graduation from law school and Tara is thrilled to finally be settled somewhere. I would say our resolution for 2012 is good fortunes. Good fortunes in Reid finding a job, building a new friend base and maybe an extra surprise thrown in as well.
We hope to wrap up our last few months in Spokane with more times with friends, more camping, hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing adventures and finally being able to sit back, relax a bit and prepare for our new venture after graduation.
Happy New Years!!
Holiday Celebrations
Christmas Eve: we started a new tradition this year by ordering Jack Stack for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was so delicious that it is one that will most certainly be carried on. We invited some friends over who were very thankful we shared our BBQ :) After our dinner we moved on to our next tradition of opening our Christmas morning pajamas. Ended the night with the clay-mation version of Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys.
Christmas Morning: we started the morning with our stockings. Each year we both think our stockings aren't very good for each other, but we always love them! Tara got lots of new workout clothes and Reid's favorite was his Michael Buble Christmas cd...that and his Christmas countdown decoration.
For our Christmas breakfast we had fruit salad, cinnamon-oatmeal pancakes and OJ! Delicious. Breakfast was followed by opening our presents which is always fun!! Even Snyder joined in and dug a treat out of his stocking. Patti (Reid's mom) sent Snyder a holiday outfit which he was a team player and sported for 2 seconds, lol!!
After all the Christmas festivities were over, we decided to head out to Riverside State Park in Spokane and do a little hiking. It was nice to get out and enjoy the outdoors but not nice to get back to our car and find a ticket for not having a permit for parking inside the state park.
Birthday Celebrations: after hiking we headed home and made Reid's birthday dinner...pizza! Tara was not feeling the baking this year (and we were not really feeling the idea of having lots of left-over dessert) so there was no birthday cake but instead put candles in the pizza! Tara actually surprised Reid this year with his birthday gift of some hiking shoes, a Mt Rainier summit t-shirt and a geo-survey point for Mt Rainier. He said the gift was "very thoughtful."
We completed the night with some K-State basketball and our holiday beers! This was a wonderful Christmas and we hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday as well.
Holiday Treats
After much thought about what kind of cookies to make and who we wanted to give them too, Tara finally settled on making holiday cupcakes this year.
We made German Chocolate cupcakes with peppermint icing made from greek yogurt and confectioners sugar. They are shaped to be little peppermint teacups (thank you Betty Crocker wedding edition cookbook for the idea)
For delivery to friends Tara put them in a cute snowman bag. Hope everyone enjoys!
Snyder's Thanksgiving Blues
For Thanksgiving this year we had planned to travel to Texas to be with Tara's family. Unfortunately the day before we were scheduled to leave, Snyder had to get stitches in his paw for a gash in his paw pad. The poor guy is still trying to recover and his mean parents don't let him exercise off leash. Hopefully only a few more days of restricted exercise and he can go back to being his crazy self.
The only good thing that came from his trip to the vet was a festive Thanksgiving bandanna!
As for mom and dad, their Thanksgiving wasn't ruined. We put together a last minute meal of roast, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and biscuits. We found a few friends, invited them over and had a wonderful Thanksgiving after all.
**Update on the happenings of Snyder: Just today Tara took him for a walk and out of no where a Golden came over and attacked him. We tried to run away but the dog kept coming back and got to Snyder 3 or 4 times before a friendly witness grabbed the dog so we could make the get-away. Snyder got a small abrasion on his chest and either another abrasion or small puncture on his rear. Poor guy!!**