Claire AndradeI was lucky enough to have 13 days straight of no work, with today being the last of those days. I love having this break over the holidays. It is SO nice to be able to forget about work and the stress for a while. I thought I would recap what we have been doing these days of my little “vacation”.
I was horrible at taking pictures and spent a lot of time off of Social Media. I try to be present when I am with loved ones and there was a lot of family time!
Christmas Party
We hosted our 2nd annual Christmas party and it was a success. I failed at taking pictures but we had a ton of food, drinks and played fun games. I had Christmas trivia and here are the winners (and the only picture I took!)
Weekend
The weekend between the party and Christmas was pretty low key for us. We hung out and didn’t do a whole lot other than eat and a little shopping!
Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve, we first hosted my family over for some snacks and presents and then Miguel’s family came over in the evening for more food and gifts! It was a busy day of hosting for us!
Christmas
On Christmas we packed up and headed to the Chicago area to spend a few days with my Dad and family. Again I took zero pictures on Christmas. So you’re just gonna have to trust me that we had a good time lol.
Papa’s Birthday
The day after Christmas is my Papa’s birthday so we celebrated at my Uncle’s host for a beer tasting and snacks!
My Birthday Celebration
We always celebrate my birthday with my dad on the 27th. This year we went bowling at Pinstripes and got Maggiano’s! It was fun!
And earlier in the day we went and saw Mary Poppins Returns which was pretty cute!
Weekend
After all of that excitement, we played pretty low the weekend after. I got my nails done, I unpacked everything, put Christmas gifts away, cleaned the house and tried to get my life in order!
We also had time to binge the new season of the Ranch, do a 500 piece puzzle and do some home cooking. I usually don’t cook on weekends but Miguel says he would rather eat my food than go out so that’s what we did. Chili and Chicken Spaghetti (with leftovers!)
My Birthday
My birthday is on the 31st so we headed to Des Moines for shopping and dinner at Flemming’s.
I also got my birthday present of a new computer! It was much needed. My other Mac was over 6.5 years old and making me want to pull my hair out. So excited to be more productive!!
New Year’s Day
Before heading home, we stopped at the Cheesecake Factory (my favorite) before heading home to watch the Hawkeyes finish playing in their bowl game.
And today, I am sadly taking down my Christmas decorations while binging netflix and getting all of my 2019 goals and to do lists in order.
Thanks for catching up!
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I am so glad that others have the same love for Cheesecake Factory that I do. Do you have a favorite dish there? I really like to get breakfast dishes when I go there because I can then get their breakfast potatoes which are the BEST. I also cannot go to the Cheesecake Factory without eating my fair share of brown bread (its brown so it’s healthy is my rationale). I also need to get a new laptop but I much prefer non-apple computers because my dad works for Microsoft … so I need to replace my 5.5 year old HP in the next few months. I guess if worst comes to worst, I wait until my birthday in July and treat myself to a new one. 🙂
I love all of their pasta dishes! Good luck on your new computer upgrade!