Things That Never got Blogged: The Entire Months of November through February

Hi, hello, is this thing on?! It's me again, Carissa - the one who used to put words and pictures and stuff here and always says she's gonna blog more but never does. Hi, yes, that's me. It's February now, and the last time I blogged was November...oops. See the thing is, early November came so fast and then the end of November was busy with the holiday and stuff, and then December came and I was stuck on the couch watching Hallmark movies all month long (so def couldn't blog right), and then early January came and I was like, trying to clean up Christmas and mourning the loss of Hallmark Christmas movies, and then the rest of January took so damn long I got really busy just wondering why January was taking so long to be over with. Makes sense right?

So I'm here to do a highlight reel of sorts, because 1.) my inner OCD doesn't let me casually start blogging again without catching it up first, and 2.) The end of 2017 was actually full of really fun stuff.

November
*Taylor Swift's new Album Reputation finally came out and my friend and fellow closet Swiftie ("closet" because we're 30 and I don't think anyone over the age of 13 can publicly refer to themselves by the name of a particular fandom) made a morning out of it. Target, brunch, then sat in my car to listen to the album because we both realized we don't own CD players. 2017 probs.

*We took the side-by-side out and buzzed around the Tonto National Forest back to Sheep's Bridge with my in-laws. The family that eats dirt together, stays together. Although next time I'm calling dibs on lead because I don't actually like eating that much dirt.

 Sheep's Bridge

*My friend Kailey hosted a Friendsgiving and it was lovely and impressive and delicious. One day your bff's are strangers you met on the internet, the next day you're drinking sangria at Friendsgiving together. Life comes at you fast.

*We made our annual Christmas photo trip with my dear friend Jennica of Amaes Photography, which might actually seem like it belongs in December but we were ahead of the game this year and got our Christmas photos done in November. And as per the usual, Jennica did an amazing job, and every year I'm like, how can we top this next year?? And every year we do.

December

*We set out looking for a small Christmas tree this year and ended up getting the biggest one we've ever had because it was actually the cheapest one we found (love you, Costco). I put it in a new spot in my living room and it was my absolute favorite thing this holiday season.

*I discovered I had the Hallmark Channel this Christmas and so naturally, proceeded to watch so many Hallmark Christmas movies that Nate turned it into a verb ("Uh oh, she's Hallmarking again").

*My family took our annual weekend trip, this year to Prescott and we had the best time. We saw so many Christmas light displays, went hiking at Lynx Lake, and saw the most impressive gingerbread house exhibit. 

*By some stroke of luck, Nate was offered Christmas Eve off which made the actual holidays so much better. Since he works the graveyard shift, that meant we had Christmas Eve night together and most of Christmas day before he went to work Christmas night. 

*This holiday season was a really really good one. A culmination of small things just really added up to make my Christmas feel so full. Usually after the holidays I'm ready for a fresh start in the new year but I was really sad to see this Christmas go. 

Christmas 2017 from Carissa on Vimeo.

January
*Rang in the new year by myself but it's fine because I had a whole bottle of champagne to myself and re-decorated my pallet.

*My family had a ribs and corhole day complete with crock-pot Mac and cheese and a surprise guest appearance by T-rex.
January 2018 Ribs and Cornhole Short from Carissa on Vimeo.

*My mom and I rode bikes to Postinos on a Saturday morning, drank a bunch of mimosas, and then got rained on the whole way home. We were drunk-ish so it's like we didn't even notice. Jk we totally noticed and we were totally wet. But also totally had fun.

*Nate received the 2017 Veteran's of Foreign Wars (VFW) Police Officer of the Year award in a lovely ceremony that he didn't want to go to because he hates this kind of thing, but we love it and are so proud and made him take lots of pictures.

Source

Source

February
*Out with the old pallet, in with the new. I got this letter board for Christmas and now it's my new favorite staple on my wood pallet and I spent an embarrassing amount of time googling "Harry Potter Valentine's puns" to find this one. Totally worth it.

If you've made it this far and are still reading this post - thanks for making it this far and reading my post. If you haven't - I totally get it.

Now, let's get this blog on a roll shall we?!

Happy 2018!