We got to hold on to what we got......

Because I'm not very good at witty titles, I've decided to start all of my posts with song lyrics for a while. Call it a 2007 goal, if you will.

Highlights of the Christmas vacation that never really was:

1. After the fiance rushed me out of the house on Christmas Eve, which I found pretty darn strange because usually I'm the one trying to get him to leave when we say we will, I realized why when I walked into my parents' house and found a surprise bridal shower waiting for me! Yay. I was highly impressed all involved actually kept it a secret. :) It was fun, and a nice reunion with the women who have been a part of my life for well, practically my entire life. I was wondering why the gifts on the registry were going so quickly!

2. We spent 2 1/2 days at my parents', including one very long, very wine-filled x-mas day with more food than I could take in at one time. It was nice to see everyone again and from what we heard, it sounds like almost everyone, with the exception of maybe one cousin waay out in Kalamazoo, will be coming to the wedding.

3. We hightailed it home to pack up our house because....drumroll please.....we bought a condo! Wohoo! As exciting as this is, we had very little time to pack up and move. We settled on the 29th (did you know you get champange when you settle? Maybe it's just our settlement company, but man, we got the star treatment when we were there. I was impressed until the fiance reminded me that somewhere in all of the financial papers we signed that day, we more than paid for the bubbly). Anyway, so 99% of our stuff is in the new place and today we'll finish cleaning out the old one. Most of my stuff has been packed up since I moved in with the fiance last March, so going through the boxes and unpacking has been a little like Christmas all over again.:) These are shots of our living room and our patio. I really am super excited to finally be settled for a few years. Not only that, it really is a huge step for me and the fiance. Sure, getting married is a big deal, but now we have equity, too! It's like we're real adults! :)

4. Between moving and packing, we had time to make it into DC to visit with the fiance's best friend, his girlfriend, and a few other people we've met via the best friend. These visits are always pretty significant for me because his best friend is half the reason the fiance and I met, so I will probably always regard him as one of the best people in my life. And we went out for sushi, which I've only had one other time in my life and now I'm craving it pretty much daily.

5. And finally, as if a bridal shower, x-mas with the family, packing, moving, and galavanting around the nation's capitol wasn't enough, we headed up to NYC to celebrate New Year's Eve with K and her boyfriend. It's never been much of a secret how much I miss my girls, so despite being exhausted from the week's activities, I was super-excited to spend a few days getting in some much-needed girl time. And it was New Year's Eve in New York, and not the crowded Times Square deal, so how can you beat that? We went to Central Park where K ran a 4 mile race at midnight while the rest of us looked uber-touristy in our 2007 hats. This is the only picture that didn't have one of us in it. K got us on "the list" for a party a friend of hers was throwing at the Empire State Building. It was pretty much over by the time we got there, but I don't think we really cared. How many people can say they've been in the Empire State Building at 2:00 AM?

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I'm not really one to make resolutions, but 2007 has a lot of big things coming up: the wedding, my last semester of grad school, (hopefully) a new job, and then things will probably settle down quite a bit into what I hope will be a more relaxed pace of life for a while.