Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to my Dad. I could go on and on about why you're so wonderful, but I think I have already :) I love you and you're the best!

I hope you have a great day!

xoxo

These days...

We're a sickly bunch around here. Matt has one of those deep raspy coughs that comes associated with feeling "feverish" and moping around the house spreading germs for days on end. Poor thing. I've been feeding him herbal teas and homeopathic remedies. He's so desperate he'll try anything! Haha. I discovered a rash on Sunday on the backs of my hands that has since spread up my arms. And on my legs. And lots of other places. Don't worry - I've been to the doctor and it's not contagious.

We'd better get well soon because we have a super exciting few days to look forward to.

Meg is coming! Meg is coming!

She's the best, most fun sister ever and I HAVE to feel better for her visit :) We WILL be well. The end.

Happy Belated Birthday

Just a quick post to say a late Happy Birthday to my father-in-law! He was off the coast of sunny Mexico on a cruise on his actual birthday, so I figured I'd wait until he came back to the real world....

He didn't fly himself down there, I just like this picture :)

We love you John and hope you had a great birthday! Wish we could have been with you to celebrate!

I'd like you to meet my new best friend

It's a cordless heating pad/rice bag. I've been wanting to make one of these ever since I saw it on another blog I read but have been putting it off....Something about facing a forecast of lows in the -20s seemed to spur me on this weekend!

It's really easy to make, but you will need a sewing machine. I have my mom's old Singer that I LOVE at my house right now.

These are the only supplies you'll need (other than some tea to sprinkle in with the rice if you want it to smell good). After some minor drama getting the machine threaded, I was good to go and the project was a quick one! I'll let you follow the directions on Darby's blog if you want to make one - I followed them exactly.

Matt had some trouble dealing with the mess I made, but agreed it was worth it that night when I warmed my toes on my new best friend rather than on him :) (Yes I'm mean like that.)

We had a low-key weekend and it was great. I was out of the house 6 out of the 7 nights last week/weekend and I was exhausted! Plus it was so cold I didn't want to go anywhere.

We squeezed in a skin up Mt. Philo with Willow on Saturday...

It was a beautiful day (besides the fact that it was only 10 degrees or so). Willow was full of herself, barking as usual.

We tried to contain her. It didn't work for long.

There was lots of snow.

I think the lake is freezing over (hooray - I've never really seen it like that...at least not from our lake house). I wonder if the ferry is still running?

I will go take some up close pics this coming weekend of the frozen lake because I'm sure you'd like to see :)

xo

Holidays in VA - Part II

Thanks to a little facebook picture stealing, I'm finally getting around to posting about the rest of our holiday trip to VA :) (Thanks Linds!)

On the 23rd, we went to an engagement party for one of our best friends from high school. She's getting married this June in Phoenix!

I didn't bring my camera, so here are some of my stolen pics....

First, a picture of the ladies :) Most of our close group of girlfriends from high school were there plus the bride-to-be's sister and her brother's girlfriend.




Do you like my outfit? I love it, but I of course can't claim it. I called Meg the week before and begged her to bring me something cute. She raided her friend's closet to find that skirt. So a big thank you to Leigh!

Next a photo with our dates...



Feeling weird with no camera, I took a few photos with my iphone...

After the bride and groom-to-be opened gifts, we took the party down to the basement high school style.

Two of my friends are twins :) and the party was at their house...they thought it would be fun to pull out their old prom dresses and you can see what happened next.

We also thought it'd be fun to play flip cup. I can't remember how long it'd been before this since I've played (Maegan, I think your bachelorette?)....I was never very good at it (MOM that's because I never practiced...especially not in high school!) :)

I took a few other videos but they take too long to load so I'll end the party with this one. We had to sneak upstairs to get our coats, trying not to wake up the twins parents. It might seem like she's being quiet, but wish I had a video of how many times she ran into those bells :)

After Christmas I made a trip to see my friend Sarah.

Her husband Ned...

And of course the Sal.

I'd already seen some of her Christmas decorations via the Internet, but she really did a great job with this gorgeous tree too!

Before I left, I did a drive-by of our old house (and looked pretty creepy sticking my camera out the window of the car I'm sure). I thought I'd miss it....but all I could think at that moment was how glad I was not to still be paying that mortgage on top of our rent...

Our visit was waaaay too short. I miss you Sarah! I tried to convince her to visit me in VT soon but don't think she'd enjoy the 0 degree high, -19 low we're supposed to get this weekend so I'm going to have to wait until summer!

We also did some shopping/exploring out and about in my hometown while I was at home. I LOVE going home. It's so fun to see our families and now many of our friends live there as well. Plus, I just love how cute it is. It's not all that small (I think about the same size as Burlington), but it has that small town homey feel.

Downtown shopping...

Yep, that's my mom and Meg so I wasn't some weirdo taking pics of strangers :)

A cute new hotel downtown...

A children's museum...

I'm not going to show you my absolute favorite store in the world just yet...I will do an entire post dedicated to that a some point so you'll just have to wait in anticipation :)

I also did some visiting with one of Willow's friends...

And lunch with mine...

Finally, on our way up to Wintergreen for New Year's, my friend Kate and I stopped at this store. AH - look at all that stuff! I managed not to buy anything, but it's just so fun to look.

OK I think that wraps it up! I better go do some of my homework...yes, I have homework again - yikes! Have a great weekend :)

Tidbits

Did everyone watch the Golden Globes on Sunday? I tuned in only to check out the dresses...I'm no expert, but my friend Cabba is my go-to red carpet consultant and I wanted to be able to discuss with her afterwards :)

We both agreed these were our favorites...(along with several others)





We were questionable on this one....super flattering according to Cabba but perhaps a different color for that flower?



I know this was a big hit, but I just can't get on board with the shoulder pad look.



AH this was a no, no, no for me. Just my opinion.



If you missed it, click here for more.

On another note, we are HOUSE HUNTING! The pressure is on because our wonderful landlady has decided to move back into our (her) house and renovate it this spring. It's exciting to look and think about owning a house again but frustrating as well. Houses are expensive here y'all. I'm talking really expensive if you want to live anywhere close to Burlington, which of course at this time we do. Also, have you ever tried to look seriously for a house with between 8-10 inches of snow on the ground? It's difficult to tell what things are going to look like the rest of the year. We will not be deterred! I need my semi-professional house hunting friends (Kate that's you) to work your house finding magic :)

The last tidbit of the day I haven't shared with you yet either. I applied for a leadership fellowship here at the University of Vermont and received this email a few weeks before Christmas....

"Dear Chelsea,

It is with great pleasure that we offer you a position as an Occupational Therapy trainee for the 2011-2012 academic year. If you decide to accept this offer, a formal letter will follow with details."

Yipee! Who would've thought I'd be a student again so soon? I promised Matt this time it's only part-time AND I will be paid :) Whew. I start tomorrow - wish me luck!

Weekend Update

Hello friends! Hope you all had a good weekend :) Ours was busy....another fun supper club, Saturday dinner with friends, watching football with cousin. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of any of that. You will have to be satisfied with more pics of Willow playing in the snow and of our first backcountry ski day!

First, Willow in the snow at the dog park. Our dog park is awesome. It's right down the street from our house and has tons of trails for walking Will off leash. Most of these were taken with the iphone...It has been super cold here so I didn't take my new camera (I usually have to take my gloves of to use it and my cool running gloves have a special iphone thing on them).

The creek was frozen over, but that didn't stop the puppies from crossing :)

"Can you throw me that snowball you're holding? Please? Put that phone away!"

"What are you looking at? I SAID, put the phone away."

My new bindings finally came in the mail last week, so I had them mounted in time to use all my new stuff this weekend! Check out those sweet stickers on my skis :)

Saturday, after spending lots of time researching using both a backcountry ski book (me) and map (Matt), we headed our for our first adventure. I brought my old camera because Matt told me my new one would be too heavy (I'm taking it next time now that I know what it's like out there).

The parking lot was almost full - we were lucky to get the last spot!

We took Willow. She loved burying her face in the deep snow...

And alternated between wanting to follow Matt and take the lead.

It was snowy! Yipee!

We started on this trail.

Then realized after a few miles that it was pretty flat and wouldn't offer much good skiing. We consulted the map again and decided to follow a different route.

It was about 18 degrees up there and I wasn't wearing a jacket. Going touring is a great workout! I also realize I am wearing sunglasses and suspenders. It doesn't look sunny, but it was bright out there. I have no excuse for the suspenders...I'm on the hunt for new ski pants.

We got on the right track (headed more uphill) and had some great skiing down after skinning a few more hours (yes, hours). Next time, we won't have to go 4 miles out of the way and will hopefully have a quicker trip. ALSO I'm hoping next time we will turn before we reach the creek bed (which we had to HIKE out of in our boots). I'll spare you the details of my temper tantrum because I'm sure Matt doesn't want to relive it.

I didn't get any downhill pics because I was spending all my energy trying to keep up with Matt. Plus, Willow barked every time we stopped so we didn't take many breaks to get out the camera! At some point I'll try to take my new camera on our trip to give you a better idea of what the trails and skiing really look like....but it was awesome!

Oh yea, I got a haircut. I took this to send to Meg, but I'll share with you as well :)

It's going to be -3 degrees tonight. The high tomorrow is 9 degrees. Wish me luck on my morning run (it might be time to break out the credit card and order a balaclava for real).