Our Christmas and New Year

Jaren decided he wanted to continue to work through the holidays so we didn't go home to visit family. I believe this was our very first Christmas that this was the case (aside from Jaren being in Iraq last Christmas). His work schedule wasn't too bad though. The Army takes all Federal holidays off and usually even throws in a 3 or 4 day pass. The Mon.-Wed. before Christmas, they worked half days and went home. Then we got a 4 day pass! Wahoo! Off to go visit the next best thing to family...friends!

We drove out to visit Jared and Jenny (Jaren's best friend and his cute wife). The drive to Kentucky was only supposed to take about 9 hours but we added an additional 2 hours to our trip with tolls going by Chicago, snow and freezing rain, holiday traffic, going home from work traffic, and accidents from bad weather traffic. Regardless of the less than pleasant drive down, we were really happy to finally hang out with Jared and Jen and their funny dog Charlie. We only took one picture right before we left and I can't even post it because Jared took it on their camera. Ours was already packed in the car. While their we got to see a booming metropolis compared to Sparta, WI. We watched movies on Jaren's new blu-ray player, Jared and Jaren played their computer game together, we ate lots of good food, and enjoyed a fun Christmas morning opening presents together. We were sad to leave and afterward I started bugging Jaren about finding a job at Ft Knox somewhat close to Jared and Jen. It's not likely though.

We stayed home New Year's Eve. We are probably really boring by some people's standards because we just watched several episodes of our new favorite show that is no longer airing...Stargate SG-1. Yes, we both like it and I know we're probably geeks for it. I think we paused right around midnight to kiss and say "Happy New Year". Then we finished the episode and went to bed. I thought it was a great night! The next day we went down to Madison to do a bit of shopping and looking around. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells (an hour north of Madison). They have an indoor water park so we ate dinner and played there the rest of the night. We decided to be adventurous and drive out to Milwaukee the next day to see Lake Michigan and tour the city. Our real excuse was that Jaren's favorite Italian restaurant, Carrabba's, is in Milwaukee (the closest one). We went there for a late lunch and then saw Lake Michigan, drove through the city, went to a cool museum, made a stop at Cabela's at Jaren's request, then drove the 3 hours back home. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with Jaren. I think we really need to have some kids soon though. Christmas morning just isn't as fun without them! All in good time. I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday season!