A lovely Christmas.

Our Christmas holiday was a good one. We made it to my parents house by around 8pm, and soon after opened our delightful gifts. I surprised my family by bringing some "bundtinis" home, that I raved about in a previous post. I don't know who was more excited, me or them.

We stayed and relaxed a few days with the fam, and enjoyed many rounds of, "The Game of Things." Games in the Dudley home can get a little rowdy, that's all I can say about that.

The obvious gift that was given as shown in the picture, definitely won the 'most entertaining gift' award of the year. Several of the pictures that were taken with the 'staches are most definitely black mail worthy, and I've decided to be a nice sister/daughter/wife. For your viewing pleasure though, I will share a few 'not-so-bad' ones.

An Austrian...with a short mustache... enough said.

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas with loved ones.

The Eve

Today I was less than excited to go to work today, but was happy to be able to get off early. Tonight we have been packing and wrapping in order to get ready for tomorrow when we head home after Wolfgang gets off work! Our Christmas day will be less traditional as usual, but we are happy that we will arrive to our family not too horribly late tomorrow night. So far it has been kind of a weird and turbo speed holiday season, but I look forward to having a few days off and sharing it with those I love. Nevermind that our heater in our apartment decided to stop working, and now blows out cold air... I guess that just gives us something to do for when we come back. Things could be worse, we could be living somewhere actually really cold and this happen. Count your blessings, right?

Merry Christmas, my dear family and friends. May you all have a peaceful and wonderful holiday!

Slow down

I can't believe Christmas is only a few days away! I'm overwhelmed by how fast time is going by.

I'm already semi-depressed and even whiny that the Christmas holiday and season is 'almost coming to an end.' What else will I have to look forward to? I just wish I could press pause and take a breather.

Ok, enough with the emo kid attitude. I do have to say, that I'm very much enjoying my Christmas music stations on Pandora, and I listen to them even single moment that I am able to, throughout the day. I have very sparse and humble Christmas decorations, yet I love them and I'm enjoying them as well. In fact, I'll probably keep them up for too long.

So my friends and family, enjoy this season before it's goneeeee! {In just a few days!}

Butter.

Fellow friends and family,

Eat your butter with a glad heart, full of gratitude. In America, this would never go down...

those poor unfortunate souls of Norway.

enjoy.

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A little delayed.

Now that it is in the middle of December, I guess Phoenix finally decided for it to be the "fall" season. I noticed this beautiful tree as I was leaving church today. After that I noticed other trees here and there that had their leaves in beautiful colors, also. Of course there aren't very many of those trees around here, but it was beautiful nontheless.

Happy Sunday everyone.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

A little something to show you what I've been up to at work lately:

{Can you see me??}



Yep, I got to play "dress up" with the General Manager of our hotel last week.

More details later; I was at work for 14 1/2 hours today, and I'm ready for bed. Happy Friday!

Dear Family,

Dear Extended Family,

I meant to add to the post about wrapping...

...I apologize in advance for the wrapping job on your presents this year. No, a 4 year old didn't wrap them,

I did.

Rain day

Remember when you would listen to the radio, and wait to hear that school was cancelled, or impatiently wait at school for them to give the "ok" to release school early for a "Snow Day?" Well, let's be honest, that didn't happen that often in my hometown.

Anyway, I had one of those days today: the grown up, central AZ version.

It has been raining a lot the last 24 hours or so. Needless to say, people generally don't like to swim when it's cold and rainy outside, so I was sent home early today from work after being there for 4 hours and not one person came out to the pool.

I'm about about 5 seconds away from celebrating by snuggling up in bed and falling asleep to Christmas music.

Wrapping

Evidence of a successful morning wrapping and sending off Christmas gifts. Glad that's over with! Austria presents are the next victim.

Sedona

I just love Northern AZ. It has it's own unique beauty, that is definitely not present in Phoenix.

We decided to take a day trip to Sedona, AZ with a couple, just for fun and to get out of town. Wolfgang and I had the opportunity to have a complimentary off-roading tour (thanks Marriott!) with Pink Jeep Tours. Unfortunately our friends didn't come with us, because the wife is 8 months prego... we didn't want to play doctor on the tour (nor would they let her go anyway)

It was chilly but the air was crisp and clean. It just so happened that they also had some holiday festivities going on at Tlaquepaque so that was fun too.

Here are some pictures from the day, and if you'd like you can look at some more if you click here.

Cupcake.

Alright people, today is a monumental day.

Today marks the first day I've ever had a "specialty cupcake" {aka a ridiculously priced fancy pants cupcake}


...and it was amazing.

I was one of those people who would judge other people who fell into the trap of paying a pretty penny for a stupid cupcake. I thought, "it can't possibly be that good." Oh, but was I so wrong.

Today at work I had the pleasure of eating a glorious cupcake from 'Nothing Bundt Cakes.' One of the departments had them, and had extras...so some co-workers and I scurried on over and had one.


The icing was amazing; don't ask me what kind of icing. Not to mention I'm kinda an icing snob. Moving on, the cake itself was lemon (big score right there) and as I bit into its deliciousness, I was surprised by the raspberry filling! {our exact wedding cake: lemon and raspberry}


It couldn't have gotten any better.

The quality was definitely there. Think I'm being ridiculous? Well, I guess you'll just have to try one and see for yourself.

I plan on taking Wolfgang and my prego friend there, I hope they fall in love like I did. Although I'm scared to see how much one of those suckers actually costs...

Christmas music.

Today marks the first official day that I'm listening to Christmas music. I'm starting it off with some 'Nsync Christmas (the pandora station). What?

{Danielle, I wasn't kidding...}

December 1st.

It's already December. Can you believe it?! I can't. I still feel like we just moved to Phoenix, but now it's already been almost a year.

I feel as though Mother Nature of Phoenix also realized it was December 1st. Today is the first day that it was actually cold, and by cold I mean the highs in the low 60s, and the lows in the 40s. Brrr! Work today was a bit chilly. The cold weather all of a sudden just happened, because literally just yesterday it was in the high 70s. I'm kind of excited though, because now it can finally start to feel like winter.

I still can't believe it is so close to Christmas- it still feels like it is too early for Christmas music. I think I'll start easing into it though, because otherwise I'll be sad if I don't listen to enough of it, before it's too late.