Vallely Girls Weekend Away!

So for the past month Chris told me to keep this past weekend open, I thought he had something up his sleeve, well it turns out he was actually helping out by keeping my sidetracked while my Sister and Mother planned a "Girls Weekend Away". The weekend started with my Dad taking us all out to dinner before we headed to Branson. He even treated us to 4, yes FOUR desserts! My family has a bit of a sweet tooth and my Dad sure knows how to spoil his girls. Once we were finished with dinner we headed to our hotel (The Hilton Promenade on the Branson Landing), they had me open my gifts, which were AWESOME, and then we called it a night. On Saturday, we got up and shopped until we dropped, we hit Target and The Tanger Outlet Shops, we all found amazing deals! We bought so much that we talked my Dad into coming down and meeting up for dinner and then taking all of our purchases home with him, otherwise we would have had no room to load our luggage up or a place to sit! He met up at the Keeter Center, where I had the best steak ever! There food and service is really delightful, if you ever get an opportunity to try it out, do not pass it up! After dinner we were driving back to the hotel and my Mother talked Tiff into driving down the strip, she passes an Old Time Photo shop that was still open and talked us all into trying it out. I won't go into much detail but it was quite an experience, one we will probably talk about for years! We did end up getting some fun photos out of it so it was all worth it. Sunday morning we had our usual Starbucks breakfast and then hit all of the shops on The Landing, and then finished the trip off with a wonderful lunch at the Burger Shack. All in all it was a great weekend! Thank you to my Sister, Tiff, Tara and April, and my Mother for a wonderful weekend. I am truly blessed!!

Starting the weekend off at Houlihans (Thanks, Dad)

 Yum!

Opening gifts (Thanks Mom and Sisters)

Dinner at The Keeter Center

haha

Christmas 2012

We had a very eventful December. I love Christmas and was happy to finally be living with my boys in a house that I got to add my touch of Holiday Spirit on this year. We had a great time decorating the tree and watching Elf. We did many other "Christmasy" things to help us all get in the holiday spirit, such as: the Springfield Christmas Parade, Ladies Christmas Tea at Church, decorating our Annual Gingerbread House, Breakfast with Santa, Silver Dollar City, baking and decorating salt dough ornaments with Chris' family (see the entire process on Megan's blog here and here), Dixie Stampede, Candlelight Service at my parents Church, Christmas Eve at the Johnson's house, our Annual Vallely Christmas Light tour, breakfast with Chris' family and an afternoon with mine on Christmas day. As you can see we made sure to fit everything in all while spending time with our friends and family who mean so much to us and really are the reason for the season along with Jesus! It was my favorite Christmas so far. God, thank you for showing me that you really do have a plan for my life and providing me with blessings along the way. Amen. 

Decoration our tree!

DC Ladies Tea

We sat at the "Elf on the Shelf" table

Springfield Christmas Parade (Caleb marched in the HHS band, of course we got to be an annoying Aunt and Uncle and yell his name and cheer as he went by!)

Allie and Mack, I love these girls!

 Decorating our Gingerbread House

Cookies!!

Breakfast with Santa at Chateau on the Lake

He asked for an XBox 360

Beautiful Chateau Lobby

SDC! Roman, Aidan, and Grace (Chandler was there too but ran off before I was able to snap a picture)

Waiting on the first tree lighting. The longest those boys sit still all day. 

Salt Dough Ornament decorating

                             

Dixie Stampede

Oreo Balls and Dr. Pepper for Santa

Christmas Morning- he slept until 9:15AM, Chris and I were dying to wake him up!

Annual Christmas Light Tour (Chris got to lead the group this year)

Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas from the "Soon to be Gregory" Family (Santa left Aidan Mustaches in his stocking so we decided to wear them to breakfast)

Breakfast Christmas Morning

Wedding=100 days (November 30th!)

Our wedding was 100 days from November 30th, so we decided to make a paper chain to countdown the days until our wedding! Aidan has been really good at remembering to remove a chain in the mornings he is here, when he is at his mom's house it is left up to Chris and I to remember it, which we have struggled with, so we are very grateful when Aidan is home to keep it up to date! It is crazy to see the chain getting smaller and smaller as the days so by!

Rock N Rock Half Marathon- VEGAS 2012!!!

My friend Kate, her husband Pete, my sister Tara, and I all signed up for our 2nd Rock N Roll Half Marathon in Las Vegas the first weekend of December. Kate and Pete ended up getting sick but still made it to Vegas, but skipped out on the race (I don't blame them, a nasty bug was going around!). So Tara and I turned it into a wedding planning/race trip. We arrived on a Friday night and immediately headed over to the race expo, after that we were starving so we browsed around and decided to eat at my favorite nightclub in Vegas. It is actually a nice Italian restaurant with a really fun nightclub upstairs. This was my first time to eat there and it was ABSOLUTELY amazing! I got the Spaghetti and Meatballs and Tara got the Veggie Pizza. We even splurged for dessert.....Fried Oreo donuts and a milkshake. Best meal of the trip! We were close to Delmonico's so we stopped in for our favorite Vegas drink, the New Orleans Nectar  it is not on the menu anymore but if you ask them they will make it for you. After that we decided to call it a night since we had a day full of wedding planning on Saturday. So the next day we headed over to the Mandalay Bay to meet with our Wedding Coordinator, Aleena. So seriously is the best, she showed us around the grounds and answered my million questions! I have no doubt she is really going to make our wedding day really special! We then decided to try out the resturant where we are going to have our dinner reception, The Border Grill. They offered us samples of foods that will be on our menu which were very tasty. The rest of the day was spent touring the rest of the strip. We also saw a Comedy Show and ended the night with a slice of Red Velvet Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. The next day was Race Day! The race didn't start until 4PM so, we slept in and then ate at the Treasure Island buffet. Just a side note: do not walk all around Vegas the day before a race, my feet were killing me!! Anyways, the race was awesome, we started at the end of the strip by Mandalay Bay and then ran all the way to Fremont Street and back, it was a nice casual race. I stopped mulitple times to take pictures of the sights and people. All in all it was a great Get A Way with my Sis!

We stay at the Treasure Island

Yum!!

Our ceremony site!

Where we will be getting married, in just a few short months

Meet my Wedding Coordinator, Aleena

As we were leaving it was roped off for a wedding, that will be for us soon!

I look like I just rolled out of bed, oh wait I did! Plus it was really windy, we thought it might rain, but it ended up being perfect weather.

I did it!!

 

Thanksgiving 2012

This is our last Thanksgiving before Chris and I get married! It was a nice and relaxing day. We started off with the Annual Turkey Trot 5K. Chris will only commit to running 2 5K's with my a year (the Turkey Trot and the Pitter Pat 5K) so I am always excited for when he tags along. It was a beautiful morning for a run with thousands of other Springfieldians. After the race we rushed home to get ready for a day full of eating. We went to my parents house for lunch and then headed over to Chris' parents for dinner. We love that both of our families live close and that we get to see everyone on the same day. Some of my Mother's side came down for lunch and then some of Nancy's side got to come up for dinner. I, of course got to finish the day out with an early start to Black Friday Shopping! We headed out later than usual due to Tiff having to rush Grace to the ER, turns out she was just stressed and dehydrated (Thank Goodness!), so we were further back in line at Target, which put a kink in our plans but we ended up still coming out with good buys (Yay for Walmart price matching everything!). After Target and Walmart, we headed over to Tanger Outlet Mall, which is always very entertaining at 2AM! Tiff, April, Grace, and Caleb then headed to the Battlefield Mall and Tara and I headed home. What a wonderful day full of great memories!

Black Friday Crew (Grace's 1st year getting to tag along, she was so excited!)

Yes, that is Caleb holding a parking spot for us! :)