Merry Christmas!

Parish and I arrived home last night at 9:30 p.m. from our Christmas weekend up North in Grand Rapids. It was a jam-packed weekend, but it was great to see everyone. I got to try on my dress for Molly's wedding - it is absolutley beautiful! I can't wait for February!! It's all coming together and I am so happy for her!

Here are some pictures...

The Hawkins/Barten 2007 Christmas Snapshot...

We opened our presents on the Barten side on Sunday night. Our neice Haylee LOVES, I mean LOVES Dora - so, what did we get her? You guessed it - everything Dora. We got her this Dancing Dora game (with interactive DVD), Tons of books (mostly Dora) and a Dora backpack. Little did we know - that's exactly what she had asked Santa for (a Dora backpack)! We were tickled pink when she realized that we had gotten her the backpack. I had to capture her expression...

Next, we celebrated Christmas eve with my family. We have a tradition every year - we go to church at 5 p.m., come home - eat appetizers, drink wine and then take all night to open our presents. Everyone takes their turn - then, when we are finished, we clean up - organize our gifts and get ready for Christmas morning. This year - Parish's big gift was an HD DVD player - he also got a new watch, DVDs, Movie certificates, boot dryer plus much more. I got a new winter jacket (very much needed), an electric griddle, movie certificates, new clothes, decorative things for our house and money. A VERY good Christmas! We also got tons of gift cards for various places...which is the perfect size and color! :)

We spent Christmas day with Parish's family (Grandma, Grandpa, Rick, Brenda, Cindy Gooner, Chad, Nicki, Haylee, Brandon & Jamie, Aaron and Holly and Derrick) ...unfortunatley, I had the flu, so I only stayed a breif while before I went back to my parents house to rest. It's bad enough when you have the flu, but on Christmas - come on!

First Annual Christmas Dinner

We had a great weekend surrounded by a few friends. On Saturday, we had the first annual "Friend" Christmas dinner with Josh and Kris and Brook and Cyle. Great food, festive decorations and a few bottles of wine - my kind of evening. We also brought our "child" Jackson, which I have to admit made me a bit nervous, he doesn't have a whole lot of recent social experience being around other dogs...but it all turned out great!
Here's a few photos from the weekend...

Right before dinner. Right after yummy appetizers and about 4 bottles of wine...

Brook, Sarah and Kris...

This might explain just how delicious the food was!

Jackson's new friends - enjoying breakfast in the morning.

The lovely host couple!!

The dads with their "kids"

I can't believe (and I know I have said this before) that Christmas is next weekend! WOW. Hope to see some of you while we are in Grand Rapids! If not, have a wonderful Christmas!!

Pictures!!

Here are a few of the pictures that I promised to post - about 2 months ago...Enjoy!

Parish, Ashley and Ashley's boyfriend - Rick.

Mom and Ashley - taking a rest with a glass of wine before the next round of catch phrase...

Parish and Gavin...

Here's a picture of Brooklyn (our cousin) and Parish, man do we absolutley love these kids!

Brooklyn, myself and Gavin at the Reintjes Thanksgiving feast...

Linz and Gavin...Me and Lisa
Sarah and Brooke

New Do!

We finished up our Christmas shopping last night, but before we did that, Parish took me to my hair appointment. I am pretty lucky, not too many husbands would wait around while their wifes were emersed in chatty girl talk with their hair stylist.
Here's the finished product...well sort of, I have some work to do to get it right.

Still Recovering...description might be graphic

Well, I am pretty much over the hump of my painful recovery. If I would have known just how bad this healing time would have been, I honestly wouldn't have had the surgery. When people told me how painful it was, I brushed it off - I mean come on - I've had tonsillitis 7 times since June/July - how "painful" could it be?

Well, I take it all back. They don't stitch the area where they remove the tonsils - they used something called Electrocautery, which burns the tonsillar tissue and assists in reducing blood loss through cauterization. The heat of electrocautery (400 degrees Celsius) results in thermal injury to surrounding tissue. Imagine the stages of a normal surface burn, you get the blister, then it pops and your nerve endings are exposed...same thing - except this is in my throat. YIKES. Good news is...I haven't had one ounce of pain meds today. That's a first in 11 days! :)

I will post some pictures soon.

This weekend, Parish and I are going to a Christmas dinner with some friends (and Jackson). We will be sure to share our pictures soon. Hope all is well!

Take care,
Sarah

Monday is my surgery. I was really nervous about it, but after talking to several people who had it done - I know I'll be just fine. I wanted to update our site today - because I don't know how much I will be able to do next week.

Our weekend in GR was so fun, but we were ready to come home by the end. Parish and I got a chance to go out twice this last week - which hardly never happens. Wednesday night we went to Zorbaz - which was packed and is always fun to see people you went to school with. I was the DD - of course - but Friday, Parish and I let loose and called upon my father in-law to drive us home (Thank goodness for him!).

Thanksgiving was nice - we went up to Dora Lake and had dinner with Parish's family and the community of Dora Lake - it was a nice time and Jackson was the hit of the party! He laid on my shoulders while playing scrabble - what a crazy dog.

Friday night was Terry's surprise party - he was so surprised too! I will have to post pictures of that night soon - in fact, I have to post pictures for a lot of blog entries that I have done these last few months. I got a chance to reconnect with my good friends Natalie and Matt who recently moved back to MN from Arizona - I missed them so much - glad that we reconnected.

Speaking of reconnecting - my best friends from college are going to dinner with Parish and I tomorrow night - I am so excited for that!!

Well, I hope we all don't get snowed in this weekend - I am really not digging this cold weather.

Until next time - have a great weekend.

Happy Turkey Week!

I think I can speak for many of us when I say that I am so glad that we only have a three day work week. Ugh. I have been SO busy trying to plan out the week that I will be on "vacation" that I can work 9 or 10 hours with little or no breaks! Oh well, I love to stay busy, so I guess I got that going for me.

In other news...we are leaving tomorrow immediatley after work to head to Grand Rapids for Thanksgiving. This year we are headed up to Dora Lake with Parish's family. I always think it is so nice what his grandparents do...we all gather at the Dora Community Hall and Grandma makes a big feast for everyone, so that no one has to be alone. After the big meal we usually dominate in Yahtzee and phase 10. Good times, good times. Then after that - us three amigos (Jackson, Parish and I) will head to my parents house for games, food and drinks.

Things I am excited for this weekend:
- I got Molly's wedding invites printed - and she'll be home from Cali, so I can't wait to show her.
- Going to GR
- 4th street get together on Friday
- assembling invites
- seeing everyone

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and travel safe!

Sarah and Parish