Celebrating the Season with Friends

Although it sometimes get hectic, running from place to place to exchange gifts and catch up with friends old and new, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's worth it.  The holidays are a beautiful time of year to get together with dear friends.

Joanne, Travis, Kelly, Seth -- December 2009

(Christmas gift exchange)

Joanne and Kelly -- December 2009

Joanne, Allison, Angie and Kenyon -- December 2009

(Angie was home to visit all the way from Kansas!)

Anthony, Travis, Anthony, Heather, Lily, Joanne, Mariah -- December 2009
Roehm-Hill Family Christmas (Part Two!)

Looking forward to much more memory making with these dear friends and many more in 2010!

Christmas at Home

I am always impressed by the folks who are able to take beautiful holiday pictures with everyone looking smiley and their dog sitting nicely and looking at the camera (ahem... Meg and Matt Herr!)  For us... it's not so simple...

 

Ah well.  There's always next year!

Since we travel to both of our families during the holiday season, Travis and I do our "own" Christmas at home before the rush of Christmas begins.  For the past couple of years we've introduced stockings in lieu of a large gift.  I think it's fun to have multiple things to open - you can really take your time and make an evening out of it.

This year, we celebrated Christmas together in Grand Rapids starting with dinner at our local Indian place.  Yum!  We enjoyed a couple of martinis and some delicious grub.

We then headed home to open our stockings!  They looked so pretty sitting on the mantle...

It's so much fun to opening gifts together!  I got Travis Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation -- it's a tradition to watch it every Christmas at his parents' house.

I got a new wallet and some candles....

 

 

Travis LOVES olives... especially in bloody mary's!

And Bella just loves the wrapping paper...  : )

Travis' reading library is now stocked for 2010...

Woah... not sure what this is all about...

 

My loot...

Trav's loot...

 

But wait!  Santa came by a little early and dropped off a gift for BOTH of us!  Wasn't that nice of him?

And Bella and the cats were thoughtful enough to get us something as well.... aw....

We finished the night with popcorn and a flick... (I was REALLY excited about my new cozy socks!)

 

I hope that you and your spouse carve out a little holiday alone-time for each other this year!  Merry Christmas!

Ornament Exchange

Every Christmas, Cindy and I exchange ornaments.  It's a really sweet tradition that I'm very thankful for.  This year we went out to breakfast and did our exchange there.  It was a fun morning of catching up!

Thanks, Cindy!  For this lovely tradition that we share!

Roehm Hill Christmas 2009

For the second year in a row, we got together with the Hill Family to celebrate the season.  Heather and I met while working for the YMCA three (or so?) years ago and over the years Travis and I have become very close with Heather and her husband Anthony and with their kids Mariah, Anthony, and Lily.

It is SO much fun getting together with them for Christmas.  Something about watching kids open presents is just wonderful.  I especially enjoy our time together at this time of year.

This year we celebrated at Heather and Anthony's home, and feasted on chili and cornbread and an array of cookies and sweet treats.

 I spy a kitty cat!

There were gifts for everyone!

We got Lily a mini Bella!

Travis loves his bloody mary's!

And I was REALLY excited about this punch!  Yup, I'm a crafty dork!

The boys got each other the same thing!

 

We ended the night with a rousing game of Pictionary Man.  Soooo fun!  Thanks so much, Hill's for having us over!