Family Christmas 2007

I went home for Christmas to ye ole Flint, MI. It was nice to see the family again, but I was like a nomad traveling from home to home to home. It was nice this year that we were able to have a very relaxed Christmas that didn't involve us rushing around from place to place hauling gift after gift. By far, the most enjoyable experience was Guitar Hero that my sister got from her fiance Greg...hence the many many pictures of family members holding a guitar. I hope you enjoy the pictures. There wasn't any consistency, mainly a lot of random pictures.

My nieces...Sasha and Suki

Ther are no words....

Okay, so not my BEST picture by a mile, but I was having fun, despite the look of agonizing pain!

Kelly pretending to know what Greg got!

Kelly pretending to be suprised by Greg's gift!

Aunt Norma

Jon & Keith's Christmas

Jon and I celebrated our 1st Christmas together. We managed to squeeze it in between his arrival back from a week long trip to CO, my insane JC Penney schedule, and my next day departure to MI. It was a ton of fun and I cleaned up like nobody's business. Jon ended up getting me leather gloves (black and brown), a Vail, CO sweatshirt, a sweater, sweat pants (designer...ha ha), and an Ipod Nano which is the coolest thing I have ever seen!!

The helicopter that Jon got as a gift from Matt. We played with it for a long, long time until a collision with a wall caused a Black Hawk Down.

Jon's Christmas Tree

Jon opening one of his 600 JC Penney shirts

A very staged reaction if you couldn't tell!

Me opening my last gift from Jon, what could it be???

My reaction was to get mad at Jon for buying me such an expensive gift (Ipod) so he caught be going Jooooooooooooooooonnnn!!!!!!

Since Jon and I are very much homebodies, we are always looking for ways to increase the excitement in our lives. We have both found we like progression pictures. Here is picture 1 of 3...me collecting ALL the wrapping paper (and there was tons of it) from our opened gifts.

Me holding the wrapping paper in a giant ball (seriously, it was a sin how many gifts we got each other).

Me throwing the paper in the air and letting it shower over us!

Okay, not our most glamorous picture, but you get the point!

Jon's an Unlce!!!

Jon's sister Jill had her first baby on 12/17/07. He was 8 lbs, 3 0zs. and his name is Cody Allan Dunham. Cody was able to celebrate his first Christmas this year and Jon was more than happy to be a part of it.

CH Robinson Christmas Party

For our CHR Holiday Party, the group of 11 of us went to the Brave New Workshop theatre and saw the funniest (seriously...it was hilarious) play - "Stuck In The Manger with you or Carol on, My Wayward Son" (I recommend this to everyone!!) and to dinner at Chino Latino! We all had a great time!! The show, food, and company were a ton of fun!

Greg, Mindy, and I having a couple of $23 tequilla after dinner drinks

Greg and Nancy

Barb and Frank

Jim and Michelle

Katie & Kathy Jo (Katie is Kathy Jo's Dauther)

My date...sadly Jon was skiing in CO.

Mindy and Michael

Jon

Okay, this was just a post to show everyone my new favorite picture of Jon.

Thanksgiving

Okay, so Jon and I found ourselves both alone on Thanksgiving at the same time. Me...for obvious reasons. And him....well, his family was all in IA celebrating with his sister. He would have probably gone too, but like me, he was stuck working the day after Thanksgiving. Boo hiss! We decided to give cooking a try and though we didn't make a full-on turkey, Jon made some awesome turkey breasts and mashed potatoes. Meanwhile, I made some green bean casserole and the worlds most AWFUL apple crisp. It wasn't my fault though, I didn't remember to bring the right size baking dish and apparently folks...that is ACTUALLY important despite what you might think. We also decorated Jon's tree and decorated my entire house the previous night. We took some pictures to commemorate our 1st official Thanksgiving together. Keep in mind, MOST of these pictures we were being silly and posing like Barker's Beauties!!

The spread!!

Jon, welcoming everyone to the table....err, me to the table.

Me enjoying the delightful aroma of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls

Can you tell we were getting desperate for table angles?

High class, drinking wine out of a martini glass

Our favorite shot of the day....the overhead!!

Part 1 of 2: Jon making a pool in his mashed potatoes, watch out....

...here comes the gravy!

Jon in front of the impeccably decorated Christmas tree...and of course with Hershey!

Wow, look at that beauty...and the tree looks good too!

House Party - 2007

Well Jon and I hosted a house party at Jon's house in Cottage Grove. After weeks and weeks of prepping food and games, the big event finally arrived. We were rather pleased with the turnout and mix of people that graced us that night. We had an awesome time and had a lot of laughs. We started with an appetizer/cocktail hour. We followed that up with a taco buffet on only the best paper plates money can buy. We followed that with some games which can really only be described in the pictures below. And finally, we did a bit of karaoke-ing. It was an absolute blast and hopefully can be an annual affair!!

Jon and Paige trying to open a bottle of wine with a screw and pliers???

Matt and Dave

Sara and Kim (Jon's cousin)

Mike and Ken

Paige and I

Yo quiero tacos con mis amigos!

Okay, this does require SOME explanation I guess. This is musical chairs...however there is a new twist on a very OLD game. You put bags of silly clothing/silly items/costumes/accessories/etc under each chair and each time the music stops and a person finds a chair, they must reach under it and pull out one of the items without peeking in the bag. Here are some of the pictures...proceed with caution!!

Uhhhhhh, creepy!!

The final outcome!

Nice moves Dave!!

Jon and I made a bracket of our Ping Pong Tournament. We went all out as you can see!!

Ken showing us best ping pong moves!

Here is another fun game we played! It is a relay race around the ping pong table where the two competitors must wrap nylons around their waist that contain a grapefruit in the bottom. They must use a pendulum motion from their hips to push the ping pong with the grapefruit.

Sara and I nearing the finish line!!

Jon and Dave caught in the act of singing!

Kim and Jon caught in the act of singing. Notice in both pictures, Jon doesn't have a mic, but he did have a drink on the table behind him!

Matt singing a Foreigner song!

Need I say more??