And Now Vacation is Over....

Well, Matt and I had a wonderful winter break, and we are both very sad that our little vacation is over! I spent about eight days in Wisconsin with my family before meeting up with Matt and his family in North Carolina. In the only flying snafu that has ever worked to my advantage, I missed my connection in Charlotte due to a delay in Milwaukee but was able to get onto the next flight out of Charlotte to Raleigh that Matt was also on. What luck!

My time in Wisconsin with my family was super enjoyable, being that it was the first time I had been back since, oh, Thanksgiving... but that's beside the point. So what do you do in frigid Wisconsin weather when you want to have a good time? You go in the hot tub... outside! The following picture is actually from November, when Matt and I went to visit my family (I had already chickened out because the water was too warm for me). When I went in with my parents in December, the water was so warm but my hair actually froze when I was in the hot tub from where it had gotten wet and then cold again once I brought my neck up out of the water.

Matt, my mom, and my dad in the hot tub on our deck in Wisconsin.

Other things to do in the cold Wisconsin tundra (we got over twelve inches of snow on one the days I was there... and it snowed a lot more than that while I was there!) include looking at the wonderful decorations my mom puts up and tormenting the animals by "asking" them to wear antlers for fun. Check it out!

The beautiful Christmas tree my mom puts up every year... the ornaments are incredible!

The old stereo my parents inherited from my grandma's Polish friends... at least, I think that is where it came from. During the holidays, it is decorated as shown above, but during the rest of the year, it displays the many photographs my mom has of the various members of our family.

And this post would not be complete without a picture of Carmie wearing some Rudolph antlers....

Yes, this was actually the best out of about five different photos... and Scrabby was even less tolerant, so no photos of him are shown here!

Although we didn't take too many photographs of our time in North Carolina, we had a fabulous time there as well hanging out with Matt's family and all of his friends from the Triangle. We were even able to have some of our favorite North Carolina food, including eastern-style barbeque, sweet tea, and hush puppies (let me just tell you that North Carolinians take their barbeque very seriously!). Here is a picture of Matt enjoying our wonderful meal at Knightdale Seafood and Barbeque (which we highly recommend, if you are ever in the area).

Matt with his sweet tea and hush puppies. Yum!

Other than that, we arrived back in Irvine this past Thursday. Despite Matt having some sort of respiratory infection and my returning with some sort of stomach flu (do not ask me how two people who traveled together for eight days can come home with very different sicknesses... it is beyond me!), we have returned back to our normal routine relatively easily... although we do still wish it was vacation!

We hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season as well, and we wish you the best in this new year! Please come out to visit us in Orange County, if your vacation schedule will allow!