A Little Time with My Sweetie

Well, I had planned to round out our Christmas recap today, but alas, our first scheduled celebration still hasn't happened! Christmas with Ryan's family was scheduled for the Sunday before the 25th, but ice caused us to delay it, and then on the rescheduled date of this past Monday, most of Ryan's family was sick. {PLEASE LET THE RECORD SHOW IT WAS FINALLY NOT THE TWO OF US DOWN FOR THE COUNT!!!} So we're still waiting on that one.

Meanwhile, I would also like the record to show that this is the first Christmas in our entire marriage that we've had more than half a minute together, because for once, Ryan had a little time off work! Normally he only gets Christmas day, and of course that is spent hopping from one celebration to the next, but THIS year, his department shut down at noon on Friday, so he got that afternoon off, he worked the shortest Christmas Eve in history, so we had part of that day together. And then, because Christmas fell on Sunday, his department was closed on Monday, so we had that day together too.

Shut. The. Front. Door.

So I thought I'd let you peek into the fun of our weekend!

Friday, while Ryan was finishing up work, I got together with one of my friends from college - along with her two daughters - for our annual Christmas celebration. The four of us went out for lunch, and then they came back here to see our house for the first time. By the time we got home, Ryan was home too, and we all had the nicest afternoon together, hanging out, drinking coffee/hot chocolate, looking at scrapbooks and having much fun. Here are just a couple of pictures from that day:

 The girls loved our counter and thought it looked like a coffee shop. So we were pretending to be baristas and they were ordering. It was fun!

Speaking of coffee, that was the theme of our gift, too! They gave us chalkboard mugs {SWOON!} and the 12 coffees of Christmas.

{Both kids belong to her, even though I currently match the hair color of one. Ha!}

After they left, Ryan and I went on a date: last minute Christmas shopping, dinner at McAlisters, and a quick drive through the lights at the We Care park. It was nasty rainy out, but we had a great time!

Saturday was Christmas Eve, and we had dinner/Christmas with Ryan's Dad's side of the family. His grandma does ALL the cooking, and she is amazing. She's a fabulous cook!

{When the Colts play during a Christmas celebration, you may find Ryan hiding on his phone. HA!}

And then Monday, we had a whole day together! We went out shopping for some after-Christmas sales, which is one of my favorite things to do, and it was more fun to have him with me!

He loves to eat at the Chinese buffet, but we rarely do, for obvious it's-not-clean-eating reasons, but that day, we went. Someone had a little fun with the food!

Food should not have eyes.  End of story.

Then we came home and Ryan began his practice sessions with Daryl the Drone. Only two objects were broken during the first night of flight. And they're fixable.

It's funnier to watch:

Since we ended up with a free evening, we went to visit Ryan's grandpa - the one who had surgery this summer, not the one I wrote about yesterday - and then we stayed for dinner with Grandpa and Ryan's Aunt Sandy and Uncle Bob!

And then...home to watch a movie. We watched Sully, because that whole story fascinated me back when it happened in real time.

It was a great weekend of extra time together, for which I was really grateful. And now - back to watching Daryl the Drone practice sessions.  

Joining up with Tamar today!

The Christmas Shuffle!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! We know many of you are extra busy today with Christmas festivities and church, too, so you might not even be here to read this ON Christmas day, but whenever you arrive at this post, we wish you a very merry Christmas!!

We've had a full week, and our best gift is that we are FINALLY FEELING BETTER!!!!!

* Because a second round of ice was expected to fall overnight Saturday into Sunday, many churches canceled their Sunday morning services, including ours. AND, Ryan's mom postponed their family Christmas, which was supposed to be that day as well. So Ryan and I had a whole day at home! Ryan made breakfast, we watched church on TV, and we took a whole day of rest, enjoying movies, football, scrapbooking, naps, and the Christmas lights!

* Even though it was so bitterly cold that all the schools around here operated on a delay, last Monday morning was so pretty. Sunrise on snow is beautiful! AND I found a cardinal in the tree, so that made me happy, too! Ryan and I had a few errands to run after work, and we stopped by to visit a friend who is home-bound now. He was happy to see us and asked his caregiver to make us espresso, which I promptly ruined by adding creamer. LOL! But it was good to see him and try to bring some Christmas cheer!

* Tuesday was the last day of school before Christmas break, so I did my last carpool run before coming home to work on my 2017 planner. {Happiness in a day!} I also had a little more wrapping to do - including Ryan's stocking stuffers, so I got that done. Our only free night this week was Tuesday, so we finished binge-watching a DVR'd show, and Ryan was exceedingly sad to realize he was going to have to wait quite a while for the next episode!

* Wednesday was my parents' neighborhood Christmas party and we went as photographers for the photo booth, which was much fun! Dinner was delicious, the company was fun, and we had a great time!

* Thursday, I met up with one of my friends for coffee and some shopping in the afternoon, which was a fun treat! That night, Ryan and I joined his family to celebrate his mom's birthday, and we ended up having a good time together - even if we traumatized our poor waitress!

* Friday felt like Saturday ALL DAY. Not sure why! I met with my friend Faith and her daughters for our annual Christmas celebration, and we had a great time. That night, Ryan and I had date night, which included a trip through the We Care Park to see the lights. We drove it since it was rainy, but it was still a lot of fun!

* Ryan had to work yesterday morning, and while he was gone, I had a massive cookie baking extravaganza for all the Christmas celebrations. It was FUN! And last night was our first Christmas of 2016, with Ryan's dad's side of the family. His grandma always makes an amazing dinner {ham, noodles, the whole nine yards} and we got to exchange gifts with that side. Great night!

So...merry Christmas from us!! Can't wait to catch up with you this week and tell you all about Christmas! :)

The Shafferland Shuffle

BE SAFE, my friends! I know there's a lot of bad weather filtering about this morning. Please, oh please, be safe out there!!

* Last Sunday was a sick day at the Shaffer household. Ryan was just certain if he could have one whole day at home to rest, he could kick the cold and get well again. While it didn't totally cure him, it did go a long way in helping. It snowed, so it was pretty to watch that from the comfort of the INSIDE. Even though we were sad to miss church, it was glorious to have a whole day at home! A true Sabbath!

* Monday's mail truck brought me a PRESENT! I may be 38, but I'm not too old to freak out in joy over a present in the mail! :) I worked from home, in the presence of our pretty Griswold tree, and knocked out a ton of chores. And when Ryan came home, Braeya curled right up in his lap and slept the night away. It's her happiest moment.

* Tuesday morning, AFTER I got home from my carpool run, it started snowing, and it was so pretty. Like a snow globe. I loved it! And Tuesday night, we hosted Tuesdays at the Table! We invited over a couple we'd never hung out with before, and we laughed so hard. It was the best time! Perfect night for soup and pie and laughter! :)

 * Ryan was excited on Wednesday, because there was a giant crane doing work at his work. I'm pretty sure he secretly wanted to go drive it! :) In other secret wishes, Braeya secretly wished she could have a piece of Ryan's pie. She was funny - she just sat next to him, very quietly, looking the other direction, like "if I am just good enough, he will notice me and share." Didn't happen. So she paid him back later by drinking his water. And this is why we have to have sippy cups.

* Thursday. Oh, you guys. THURSDAY. That cold of Ryan's came right back to me, and I was utterly flattened. I never left the couch. I tried to read and watch TV, but the truth was, I slept the entire afternoon away. Ryan said he had never seen me as sick as I was that day, and that's probably about the truth. He prayed for me, which I really appreciated, and I also appreciated being able to be home and have pretty lights to look at between naps. But other than that, I would just prefer to forget Thursday.

* By Friday, Ryan and I were ready to declare WAR on the germs in our house. We washed and disinfected EVERYTHING. And while I did feel much better than I did on Thursday, I was still not great, so that night, we curled up and watched Christmas Vacation and drank the delicious lattes that our friends Mike and Angie brought to us as a gift to cheer us up!

* So if you're not from around central Indiana, you might have missed out on the ice that blanketed us overnight Friday into Saturday. Woke up to an actual skating rink outside. It was insane! We slept in, took it easy, and then Ryan went out to salt the driveway, and one of our friends in the neighborhood had a sled out and was sledding down the ice in the driveway. Of course Ryan wanted to try, and I have {are you ready for this?} never gone sledding before. So we both went. We were just out for a few minutes, but it was fun in the most terrifying way! We did manage to get out a bit later for errands, and then we hunkered down before the next round hit!

Hometown Date: Christmas at the Seiberling!

One thing I've really enjoyed about our move to Kokomo has been the chance to go on fun hometown dates to places I'd never been before. We did several during the summer, but we had a chance to do a couple more last week, and I wanted to show you one today!

There is a mansion here in town called the Seiberling, which you can read about here if you're a big history buff. It was built back in the 1800's as a private residence, and has been owned by a handful of {equally wealthy} people over the years {And, I learned, for a short while, it served as the campus of IU Kokomo. Can you imagine? A whole college in one house?} It's now a museum that houses historical things about Kokomo.

I confess that being the non-history-loving girl, I would be unlikely to visit a museum, but at Christmas they deck the halls, the windows, the stairways, and everything else, so it suddenly held massive appeal for me.

You do have to pay to go on the Christmas tour, but they had a few nights when businesses covered the cost and it was free to the public, so we went on one of those nights. THANK YOU, First Farmer's Bank and Trust, for giving us a date night! :)

{I had wanted to go, but since Ryan was feeling so lousy, I didn't think we'd be able to. At the last minute, he said he was up for it, and some of my friends happened to be going that same night, so it turned into this big group outing!}

LOOK AT THIS HOUSE!!!

Yes. It has three floors. Isn't it so pretty!?!?!!?

I call this piece "Shaffer Selfie in the Foyer."

We don't rock mirror selfies.

Anyway. Here are some of the sights of the house. {There was also live music on two of the floors, and a voting contest to vote for your favorite room.}

This is what happens when the Shaffers visit a fancy establishment but cannot manage to take the Shaffer out of the visit:

And yes. That is a chamber pot. {The ladies working that room got a big giggle out of this moment.}

Back to the loveliness:

Look at that VILLAGE and the TRAIN! And if you look just ahead of the train, you'll see a police car that has pulled over a Krispy Kreme truck. LOL!!

Group selfie on the third floor!

Porch picture:

And at the house next door {which is also part of the museum complex}, they had snacks and SANTA!!!!!

It turned out to be a really fun night, and I was so thankful Ryan powered through the miseries of his cold to give me a beautiful memory! :)

 Linking up with Tamar!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday, our traveling vacation ended, and we had to pack up the car and come home from French Lick. Ryan did an amazing job keeping us safe in the wintry mix that dominated our trip home, and we went out in the snow to the "Kroger Tree Farm" to get our live tree for this year. Old Grizzy was much skinnier in a net than he was all settled into our living room!

* Ryan had Monday off work as well, which was a huge treat, and we enjoyed the whole day together. {I dearly love days when I do not have to share him. I'm greedy that way.} We decorated Grizzy, took naps, and watched football! Perfection. {OH! And he ran his first carpool trip with me. That was fun!}

* Tuesday, neither Braeya nor I wanted Ryan to go back to work, but he had to. And what a poor choice that was. He came home SICK. He ended up with the same stupid cold I've had off and on since the end of September - and it literally just smacks you in the face with no warning. You can imagine how amused the two of us were! So when he came home, he settled in for a nap, and I thought maybe some chocolate chip cookies would fix the issue, so I made a batch. He's still sick, but those were GOOD cookies. I will not lie.

* I spent all of Wednesday wrapping gifts {with the help of my "assistant," and loved the way they turned out! :) My mom stopped by and brought our annual gift of a box of her Christmas candy, which is ridiculously good, and I'm making Ryan eat most of it, because left to my own devices, I could eat the entire box in one sitting. That night, even though Ryan was sick and I told him he should stay home and rest, he wanted to go help his mom haul some Christmas tubs out of a barn loft. So we did that, and in the process, found Ryan's first Christmas ornament! :)

* I'll tell you more about this part this week, but Thursday night, we toured the Seiberling mansion, which is this huge historic house in Kokomo, and for the Christmas season, it's all decked out with trees and lights and much festivity! It was kind of an impromptu date and then it turned even bigger and more fun when we met up with friends and had this big group fun night!

* Friday, Ryan's work provided a Christmas lunch - complete with a quartet singing Christmas songs! How cool is that!?!? We planned to get groceries that night, ahead of the panicked-store-emptying-extravaganza we imagined would happen on Saturday, since snow is predicted, and it turned into a whole date night! We got coffee and drove through the lights in the park - so much fun! {Ryan really is a trooper when he's sick. I am proud of him for how he pushes through when he feels TERRIBLE.}

* Yesterday, Ryan had to work all day, but while he was gone, look who came to visit me! PHOEBE!!!! We cuddled and snuggled and took walks and had the best time! I have been planning and planning a special date for Ryan for the last several weeks, and it was last night! Of course he was still sick, but he said he had fun, even though he didn't feel well. I can't wait to tell you more about it!!