Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Holidays with the Hurckes'

As I mentioned yesterday, the past couple weeks have been crazy. I started tutoring after school a few days a week for a 6th grade student. So instead of going to Panera or running errands from 3-5pm I tutor in math and spelling. This has been great and I am enjoying it, but it makes for many more things that have to get done in the evening when we get home...taking the place of updating the blog.

Since Rick and I were hosting our families for a "holiday celebration" a lot of cleaning needed to take place. I started working on the scrapbooking room since we needed the extra table upstairs for food. This led me to finish my scrapbook of GLACURH so that I could move my laptop downstairs. This change has really been significant since I no longer have the laptop in the living room. We are spending more time downstairs, but ultimately less time on the computer which is a plus for both of us. Here I am finishing my scrapbook one day last week.


My last day of school for 2007 was Friday the 21st. On Saturday, we hosted our families for Christmas. I cooked my first turkey-which turned out very well. With both of our families there were 12 people at our house. It was a good number--probably our limit for a sit down meal though.

While I was cooking Rick spent most of the morning getting a video of a fireplace. It was a big hit and kept our house very warm! Alex was much more interested in presents this year than last year. Although he didn't care so much about what was in them, he did enjoy stacking and unwrapping them!




Alex and Carlo

Rick wishes all of you a very "Mary Christmas"

Jackie and Carlo

My mom and Gail

Alex and Jackie stayed the night after the party. On Sunday morning Alex and Rick played with Alex's new Mr. Potato head.


Alex and I are listening to some of his favorite songs on Youtube



Rick and I had plans to go to Aunt Maryanne and Uncle Jerry's for Christmas Eve after we had dinner with Jack and Anita. I said I would bring a dessert to their house. Luckily I got a new cookbook for Christmas from my mom (The Chocolate Cake Doctor). I made an excellent recipe and enjoyed watching them cook.
mmmm.....

On Christmas Eve I dropped my parents off at the airport to go see Andrea and then Rick and I went to his dad's house. One of the highlights was when his dad was listening to Rick's I-pod. Never did we think we would see him with the white earpieces :)
We had a great evening with Jack, Anita, Megan, Jenna, Jerry, and Maryanne. Rick and I spent Christmas morning together. We opened our presents and really enjoyed being in our new home together on Christmas. Rick got me new earrings (I lost my other ones from him on our honeymoon), a new paper cutter, a sweater, and perfume. I am truly spoiled by him. I hope he liked his gifts as much as I liked mine. Even though he had guessed or found out about most of his, I was still excited to watch him open them. I got him a calendar of Alex and his family, a DMB DVD, Guitar Hero 80's songs, and a series of books about each place he has lived.

After opening presents we took a walk, played Guitar Hero, and cleaned up the house. We got ready to go to Aunt June's. However on the way we made a spot at the Canal. Each year my family goes to the "beach" (Lake Michigan) to take a family picture. Years when we are out of town we go to the nearest body of water. This year since my parents were gone, we thought it would be fitting for us to still take a picture. Here is our picture from the I&M Canal in Lockport. Can you believe it was at least 40 degrees on Christmas Day??


Like I said, we have been busy, but have had a great holiday. We thoroughly enjoyed our first Christmas and Hannukah being married and look forward to many more.

We are hosting another party next week. We are having Alex's 2nd birthday party at our house. Can you believe he is going to be 2 already??? Stay tuned for pictures and updates!

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