Owen volunteered to play in the jazz band before his promotion ceremony!
I love that he was able to walk with his good friend Lucas…
And Anna (as school board president) was able to give him his diploma!
And then it was off to our celebratory dinner at The Chocolate Sanctuary because it’s closing soon! Of course I forgot to get a photo of our whole group but I did get a picture of my chocolate strawberry martini!
Anna and I painted our pets (puppy Olive and Honey) at a local art studio! (Tom and I did birch trees here before!) With the pets, they start you with a pencil drawing from a photo you send— which made it a ton easier!
It was really fun, though I enjoyed it more than Anna did!
Soooo this is happening today. Perfect timing weather-wise as it might be open longer than we thought did to unforseen wood rot issues.
It’s in but I didn’t take a final photo yet because the molding and such isn’t complete!
Matching shirts today for our errands!
And boy does it make all the difference!
I blame David. He started it.
I looooove chips. So I might have gone a little crazy at the local exotic snack store!
The last time I did something like this was probably over a year ago when Tom and I wandered into a Japanese grocery store and we bought a bunch of chips (and I think we only have one bag left—we just open a bag every now and again and do a taste test with Anna and David). So I dragged her along with me…
I know the flavors are probably hard to read, so I’ll share a few:
Every time I wear this shirt I first think of my BFF Anna who found it for me…and second I think how perfect it is! (ICYMI, my business name comes from my sarcasm.) #lippylife #livinglippy
Anna: I really like the Zero version. 4/5 stars
Jen: I am not a huge flavored pop fan but I give the regular version a 3/5.
Tom tried both and liked the Zero version better. 4/5
We have consensus that it needs vodka. 
It was hard saying goodbye because we had soooo much fun and soooo many laughs and we all get along soooo well.
But we’re counting the days until Kelly hopefully comes back to Chicago this ssummer—and we have a birthday girls weekend to plan for September!
Our friend Kelly really needed our support during a rough patch so we decided a girls long weekend was in order!
Somehow we managed to have the only empty seat on the plane in our row! We definitely took advantage!
Drinks on the couch under comfy blankies — not getting drunk but having fun.
I did it! A whole month with no alcohol! So as a reward, I got my own personal pitcher of Holy Water while celebrating Owen’s birthday a day early with friends!
I’m so excited about the Christmas ornament project I finally finished today (with moral support from Anna)!
INSPIRATION PHOTO:
I wanted to do this because we have soooo many ornaments that we don’t always get to use but I miss seeing. And I didn’t want a wreath because I had lots of big ornaments that wouldn’t have fit well around a wreath. (I used a deep mirrored tray.)
So the ornaments range from things I grew up with on my parent’s tree to handmade ornaments from both grandmas to mementos from family and vacations to favorite TV shows and hobbies and favorite things…and more!
I am soooo thrilled with how it turned out!
Dogsitting for the first time…
ALLLLLL the cuddles… Watch Ivy get closer and closer.
And then a nap with dad.
In a new hoodie (which she’s too big for already).
And introducing her to the smells at Anna and David’s…their dogs were crated.
We had a list of about 12 names we were considering, but Ivy won by process of elimination! (Some of the last to get eliminated were Sissy, Sadie, and Ruby.)
And of course Anna and David came over to meet her! Olive couldn’t get enough of her.
And as soon as Ivy got up… Olive took her place!
We’ve been to a BrickFest before in Virginia and it was AMAZING. So we were excited to go again… Except this one was a complete dud compared to that. Super SUPER disappointing.
There were basically NO displays—the previous one had city blocks, automation (think roller coaster), big things, little things, selfie stations…
This one had some giant creations:
and a very small area of smaller creations like this:
but that was about it. Most of it was lame (for older kids) stuff like “make and race a Lego car”
or “create a glow in the dark Lego” (which Owen did to at least do something).
The kids also did one square of a bigger design—which we would never see.
But man did the store and checkout lines take up a ton of space (conservatively 1/4 of the venue):
This was the best part for me—a local artist who did lilacs. I’m going to need that ASAP.
What was even more disappointing is that we were supposed to go with Anna and family—but long story short they got there after us and got stuck in a huge line and then we discovered it sucked so they just gave up and never made it in.
After we got home I decided to look up the last one we went to…and discovered it wasn’t BrickFest, but was BrickFair. UGHHHHH.
We just had a simple dinner and watched TV at Anna and David’s tonight. We missed the east coast ball drop…and then we watched as CNN missed the central countdown!
Anna and family went home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning but came back for Christmas dinner! Tom had wanted to smoke a prime rib…
It was delicious.
