I'm Not Oprah...But These Are a Few of My Favorites Things in December

Sydney's Favorite Things: In December


1. Twilight














As embarrassed as I am to admit this, I too was "sucked" into this teenage thriller about Vampires! It completely "devoured" me and "eclipsed" my entire regular life! (Like my oh so subtle Twilight vocab) Stephenie Meyer is an amazing writer who keeps you on the edge of your seat, staying up late at night saying "just one more chapter," and running out to the bookstore in a frantic panic hoping the store has the next book in the series! I would highly recommend getting "bitten" by this amazing series!!



2. Getting Tipsy with my Girls






























































Although large amounts of wine were involved in this night, getting Tipsy refers to a nail salon in Boca Raton, FL where we enjoyed a little girls night out. The salon is ultra sheek and modern. They have a full bar where you can sip anything from beer to champagne. Each of us brought in some finger food to munch on as we were pampered with manicures, pedicures and sipped some wine! What could be better?? No seriously..what could be better!



3. Being offered my new job at the JCC











4. Steve Getting his Green Card approved!















After 4 long years of dealing with immigration and Visas we are proud to announce that Steve was finally approved for his GREEN CARD!!! What does this mean for us? No more annoying Visas, no more sweating bullets as we drive through customs at the border and no more red tape!! His Green Card was approved for 2 years and after that we re-apply for his 10 year Green Card. Hopefully, by then he will be very close to taking his Citizenship test to become a...dreaded American!!! Congrats babe!! I'm so proud of you!





5. Big Love





















Trust me, I know what your thinking! A series about Polygamy produced by HBO, just another way HBO can get away with showing men having sex with tons of women. But, if you haven't had the chance to watch an episode you're really missing out! Comcast Cable had season 1 & 2 free on the On Demand channel and I must admit that if Steve hadn't left a full month before I did, I probably would have never watched a single episode either. But he did and so I did...and it is amazing! Only HBO, the king of great televison, has done it again!

Our new home!!

Life as been a bit hectic with the big move, but I'm finally here and we're starting to get settled in. What does our place look like you ask? Well, let me just fire up the golf cart and I'll take you on a "virtual" tour of our place. All strapped in?? Here we go.....

The view from our balcony. This is what the community looks like along with the community pool. It's a little too cold for the pool right now, BUT, you can see your shadow, sooooooooo Lacey and Chris come on down!! (A little inside joke)

Now onto the inside of our place. Our beautiful (and modern) kitchen!

Close up of the kitchen. I love the stainless steel appliances and dark cabinets.

The living room

The living room before furniture. Notice the fireplace!! I've never had a fireplace before!

We are sure going to get our use out of this little puppy! It's cooooold here! Brrr!

Farewell Hanukkah!

Hope you picked some good gifts~

Virginia or Bust!

We made it to Virginia but not without a little bump in the road...well, maybe a big bump. About 2 1/2 hours into our drive Steve noticed a strange light that came on the dash. Before I had time to reach for the manual it became very clear what that light meant. With a series of loud thuds we managed to steer a very shaky, lopsided vehicle, off to the shoulder of the road without hitting anyone (or them hitting us). When we got out of the car we were overcome with the smell of burning rubber. We looked down to see our tire shredded to pieces and completely off the rim!! We immediately called AAA (on Xmas day) to send a truck out to help us. To make matters even more stressful, in order to get to our spare tire we had to empty out the entire back of the car, which was jam packed from floor to ceiling with our stuff, onto the side of the road, in the rain! I swear I couldn't make this stuff up!
One bright side to this story is that our spare was a full size tire. So once AAA came out and changed the tire we were back in business. Another 15-20 mins to re-pack the entire car and we were off again. I guess it could have been much, much worse. It added about 1 1/2 to our trip and we arrived in Virginia Beach at about 10:30pm.




Close up shot of where our tire ripped. I've never seen a tire rip like this before!

Here's Emma freaking out, as we pile our stuff from the trunk into the front seat to keep it from getting wet.
Moral of the story? Always keep a full size spare in your car when driving cross country on Xmas Day!!
Stayed tuned for pictures of our new place!!