As my coworker calls it, for New Years I had a Scho-down! My sister flew out to see me and Schollian is our maiden name :). She was here from Dec 31 – Jan 6, and we had lots of fun together and also hung out with lots of Schollian relatives in MD.

After work on New Years Eve (got off a bit early :-D!) I got Chelsey at the DC airport. We took the metro home, stopped at the grocery store, and made lots of delicious breakfast food – pancakes & buttermilk syrup, German pancakes & whipped cream, fruit, bacon, and quiche! And we spent the night eating and playing games :). Besides us there was Ben & his older brother, Jason; our friends Barbara&Gary Lougee; Gary’s sister, and Candice&Dave Ward – and of course their adorable toddler, Peter! Peter helped us baby proof our house 😉 but after a couple hours of exhausting all interesting things for toddlers, Ben found the magical babysitter – Curious George :D! Some of the games were very intense 😉 but lots of fun!

 

 

Thursday and Friday, Chelsey and I went out to eat (went to Rasika – an amazing Indian restaurant, and Farmers Fishers Bakers – both in DC), had fun dressing up (and Chelsey teaching me make-up), and shopped a little.

 

 

 

From Friday, Jan 2 – Tuesday, Jan 6 Ben went to Boston for his interviews, and Chelsey & I went up to see our Schollian grandparents & family. We had lots of fun with them (and once again ate way too much :-/)!

Chelsey and I left my Grandparents Tuesday about 5 am and headed to the airport…Unfortunately it had started to snow about 4 am and the roads and my inexperienced snow driving scared us both. Chelsey made it to the airport and I made it home but Chelsey’s flight was delayed about 5 hours :-/ and shockingly I didn’t get a snow day at work :(. Lame day for the first snow of the year.

 

But I took the day off anyways and took a nap before I went and got Ben at the airport at about 9 pm. And we were all safe and I was glad to see Ben again so I couldn’t complain too much :-).

 

Now Ben and I are trying to get back into the groove of things and I guess its time to stop eating chocolate and make some goals for the new year lol. Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Day we spent with the Munyans in VA. It was a house full of people! 18 total  – 11 of Ben’s 14 siblings, us, his parents, and his brother’s wife and 2 kids! We got there by 10:30, I made German pancakes & bacon and we spent a couple hours opening presents! Everyone pretty much gets everyone a present so there were quite a few!

There were lots of thoughtful gifts, like the Grandma sweater and picture video Ben’s mom got, and this amazing box Ben made for me! He has gotten really good at wood carving! And I didn’t even know he was working on it until Christmas Eve! The flowers have seven petals (my lucky number!) and on top is the knot of love and knot of wisdom :D!

Everyone loved Ben’s adorable

nephew & niece and they got lots of costumes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course there were lots of silly presents     ;-). Jacob asked for matching pjs w Lauren and we couldn’t resist getting them… hopefully they actually wear them ;). Lots of people asked for Nutella… so Ben asked for a silly poster of Mona Lisa holding Nutella lol.

 

Then people relaxed, looked at phones, slept, played with toys, and made a delicious dinner.

 

The next day we went to Olive Garden with some of the Munyans and hung out some more. And Sarah, Rachel, & Jason came to visit me at work!

 

 

 

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The weekend before Christmas I went to AZ (Ben stayed home 🙁 and worked and went to an interview for the SEC in DC!). I had lots of fun hanging out with family, hiking, and doing our traditional Mexican food & White Elephant game with my mom’s family, the Memmotts. This year we even added a pinata & the younger cousins dressed up for the nativity. And at the Memmott party, I got to meet my Grandma’s new husband (see pic below) and my cousin’s cute new baby girl!

I can’t believe Misty (we got Misty and Otter when I was 10) has made it to 15 and is still smiling! With my mom & Craig we did a name exchange and did a nice-ish white elephant game which was fun, and we didn’t have to worry about as many gifts :-).

     

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I ate way too much food and had lots of fun with family and friends!

PS For those of you who saw Ben’s video of Let it Go from last year’s Christmas post, I have another remake :D! I had an awesome work Christmas party – we had bay decorating contests, and my section did a Frozen theme and recorded a econ version “Let it Grow” (ie inflation).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other sections had some pretty good ones too: