Long Overdue

So this is a long overdue blog post.  It has been my turn for quite some time now and I used to think there wasn't that much to write about but the more I think about what has happened since December 1st, the more comfortable you should find your seating arrangement because this is going to be a long one.

First off, School happily ended for both of us.  I love long breaks from school!  For most of our break we have watched movies/seasons of TV shows and we love it.  We watched Seasons 4 and 5 of Alias and were still convinced that the first two seasons were the best.  The show recycled too many story lines and it wasn't even interesting anymore.  We also watched Season 1 of Chuck.  It was a gift from our totally cool and awesome Sister Amelia and Brother-In-Law Joel.  Thanks guys!  We love it.  It's a perfect mix of the "24" excitement with the "Get Smart" humor.  Two thumbs way up!

In celebration of school being out and to get us in the Christmas spirit we went to Kansas City and saw "The Nutcracker" ballet.  It was very nice.  We really liked the music and the adult dancers but could have done without the little kids.  They weren't as fun to watch.  For several days afterward, Karen could be seen ballet dancing just about everywhere.

Christmas finally came.  We spent Christmas Eve with the Buhlers and started the evening with dinner at my Grandmothers and invited Lance One Horn along too.  We then followed tradition and went to the Plymouth Congregational Church's Christmas Eve program.  Afterwards we opened presents at my parents' house and enjoyed reminiscing about our favorite Christmas memories.  Christmas morning was all to ourselves.  I was awakened by a giddy wife around 9am and was told that Santa had come and left us presents.  We each opened our presents and stockings and had a good laugh.  We kept things very low budget and decided on $10 for the main gift and $5 for stocking stuffers purchased at The Dollar Tree.  I received, among other things, a 30in "chain" with a "Bling Bling" medallion on it while Karen was flipping out over the High School Musical wall decals with none other than Troy Bolton and the quote "Getcha Head In The Game!".  We then packed up and went over to the Christensens in Topeka for the rest of the day.  We watched "Elf" with them and I was reminded of how much I love that movie.  We also played two very heated games of ERS (Karen refers to it as Egyptian Rat Killer but still uses the acronym ERS.  Hmmm...) with the remaining members of the family.  The other half of the family members were in either Utah or Texas visiting other members of extended family.

The following Sunday we went to the annual Buhler Family Reunion.  It's a wonderful tradition in my family where all of my Granddad's siblings and their families gather every year to give reports of where everyone is and what everyone is doing.  I love our family!

The next week both Karen and I came down with a fierce cold that we couldn't shake.  We were bed ridden for almost the entire week.  The two of us have gone through 5 Kleenex boxes and counting.  We're hopeful that all of the congestion will be gone in time for our flight to California next week.  My Mom gave Karen the fear that our ear drums will burst because of the airplane cabin pressure while flying.  I hope nothing of the sort happens.

New Years day we had the missionaries over for dinner and Karen went all out with our fine china and actual silver silverware.  We even had some sparkling grape juice to top things off.  That sparkling grape juice inspired me to make a picture with a creative light setup I've seen some other photographers do on Flickr.

Today, January 4th, 2009 marks our one year anniversary!  To celebrate the occasion we went out to dinner last night and went to see the movie "Valkyrie" which was a very good history lesson.  Then today we exchanged gifts.  Supposedly, someone has written the rules for the themes of nearly every anniversary you can have and the first anniversary has to do with paper.  Karen decided to buy me a set of small look books that I can leave with people to advertise my wedding photography.  After some of my suggestions they will make a fine gift.  My gift to Karen was clever in nature.  I will admit my guilt in not remembering to purchase the anniversary gift until the last minute.  This last week really threw me a loop because we were both sick and neither of us really left the house.  So, with very little time and a budget of $15 out of pocket, I had very limited time, money, and resources.  I ended up sending her a gift through iTunes for Season 4 of The Office.  The standard definition season costs $27.86 but I still had $20 left on my $25 gift card I'd gotten for Christmas so all was well.  It's not directly a paper product but I figured a mocumentary based on Dunder Mifflin, a paper company, was appropriate.  She gave me points for creativity.  Then, tonight we ate our year old cake with my parents.  The white frosting was still good but the cake was very dry.  We didn't eat more than a few bites.  So, now that we have a year under our belt, it's all a cake walk from here.  Right?

P.S. Karen here.  Adam and I couldn't decide whether to add this in this post or not, but we figured the public can't be kept from this forever.  Even on our deathbeds, we spent four hours outside on a cold winter day to make the following music video with our friends.  It was part of a contest put on by the Flight of the Conchords - remake their video of the Hiphoppopotamus vs. Ryhmnoceras for a chance to appear on HBO!  Who could resist?!  We couldn't.