The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Now that I no longer live with my parents, the holidays took on a whole new meaning for me this year since I was actually coming home for Christmas instead of just walking downstairs. As homesick as I was when I first moved to Colorado, I've totally fallen in love...but it's still hard being a plane ride away from my parents! Skype makes a big difference but it's not the same as seeing them in person and I was really excited to go home for Christmas.

Billy and I had found a cheap flight home, but unsurprisingly that meant it had a less than ideal arrival time...in Baltimore. We were originally slated to arrive at 1 am, which meant we still had time to book a SuperShuttle back to Bethesda and let my parents have a full night of sleep. That plan was completely derailed when our flight was delayed two hours and after arriving in Baltimore at 3 am, we were informed that the wait for a SuperShuttle would be "at least two hours." 

My dad has always insisted that I have a lifelong pass for calling him at all hours of the night for a ride (insert Daddy's Girl and only child comments here), so I reluctantly called the house to see if they could come rescue us from spending a night in the BWI terminal. After assuring my mom that I wasn't calling because of a medical crisis or other life threatening situation (remember, I'm an only child), my dad zipped up to the airport and saved us from being stranded by the baggage claim with the rest of the unfortunate souls who had been counting on SuperShuttle or similar transportation.

After spending the first day at home predominately catching up on sleep, we had an awesome time celebrating my birthday and Christmas. We broke tradition of going to Melting Pot to go downtown to see the Ellipse and eat at Old Ebbitt Grill in DC. I used to go to the Ellipse every year with my granddad when I was little, but I'd never seen it lit up at night and my mom and Billy had never gone at all. We caught a lucky break with the weather and smushed our way through the masses to take in the tree in all it's Christmas-ey glory.

Since Billy obviously spent Christmas with my family instead of his own, I decided to include some of his Christmas traditions with ours. Billy always went to church on Christmas Eve, so we headed to St. Dunsten's on Tuesday night for my first Christmas Eve service. Fortunately, St. Dunsten's caters to those of us who do not regularly attend church by providing everyone with essentially an idiot's guide to church that outlines all the song verses and even tells you when to stand/sit/kneel. 

The special part about going to St. Dunsten's is that my parents got married there (as did two of my aunts) and my granddad was a founding member of the church. Unfortunately, I'd only ever been to St. Dunsten's for his funeral service as well as for my grandmother's, so I was eager to form some happy memories at the church and feel close to some Cardon family history.

Once we got home, each of us opened a gift (another great tradition started thanks to Billy!) which of course helped ease the anticipation for Christmas morning. It was really fun incorporating both of our families' Christmas routines into the holiday and hopefully helped Billy feel like a little piece of home was with him.

Now that I'm (sort of) an adult, the most exciting part about Christmas for me is watching other people open the gifts I've gotten them. Billy's gift arrived at the last minute (8 pm Christmas Eve), and after coming very close to having a panic attack that he would have nothing to open, I was super excited to see his gift finally arrive. Shutterfly sure knows how to make you sweat! Last year, I got made him a photo album of all the fun things we did in 2012 and after spending 4 weeks making it, I opted to go high-tech this and get one made through Shutterfly. I also waited until December 17 to start planning, so that may have had something to do with choosing Shutterfly over my own crafting skills...

After the Christmas festivities were over, the three of us headed out to the C&O Canal, which runs along the Potomac River, to another special Cardon spot. I also went there all the time with my granddad (as did my dad with his entire family when he was a kid), so we like to go to the canal whenever I"m home to say "hi" to my Granddad and take in the Maryland scenery. As much as I go on about Colorado, Maryland is also incredibly beautiful in its own East Coast way (even if it makes me sneeze a lot).

I spent the rest of the week fitting in as much time as I could with friends and family, the dogs, Lizzie, and of course Billy. I'm headed south for the winter again to Florida, so I had to say goodbye to Billy when he flew back to Denver on Saturday. I found it very hard to tear myself away from Colorado when we left last week, and while I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity that Florida brings, I'll be counting down the days until I get to see Billy and Denver in April!

Thanksgiving in Paradise

Just when you thought Thanksgiving recaps were over...here's ours! Fashionably late. 

Billy and I had originally planned on spending Thanksgiving in Denver since flights back East do not come cheap and we already went back for the Naval Academy Reunion and are going to Maryland for Christmas. Billy's mom VERY generously offered us plane tickets to Florida to spend it with her, Billy's stepdad, and his sister's family. We jumped at the chance to spend the holiday with family instead of attempting to figure out something in Denver...plus who turns down a vacay to Florida?! We flew out late on Tuesday night and prepared ourselves for sun and serious relaxation.

For those of you spending the holiday in colder weather, it will probably make you feel better to know that it wasn't sunny and warm the entire time. Our first day was windy and cloudy, so since it's not exactly pool weather, we loaded up into the car and drove out to Sanibel and Captiva Islands for a day of exploring. Billy's favorite restaurant on Captiva is the Mucky Duck, so we headed out for lunch before stopping at the beach and a wildlife preserve (although we didn't see any wildlife...just trees. But very cool looking Floridian trees).

On the beach at Sanibel

 I've only ever seen Wellington and the Everglades, which are obviously wildly different from eachother. Wellington is highly manicured and tries really hard to look like the most perfect version of Florida. There's palm trees perfectly lined up along every street and all the buildings are stucco with that Spanish tile roofing. On Sanibel, it was nice to see a more natural version of Florida with "normal" vegetation and houses. Although there was at least one hot pink house, which is still probably fairly normal for Florida.

Billy's sister Aly and her family were due to arrive that night, so we enjoyed few hours of silence in the house once we got back from the beach. Spending the long weekend with them was a blast, and further reinforced that parenting is more work than you could ever imagine or put into words. 


Since the kids only see Billy (and now me) once a year, they are still at the age where they don't always remember us and are very wary of the new strangers sharing a house with them. Chase (the baby) mistook me for Aly their first night here and was horrified to discover he had walked over to the WRONG lady with brown hair.

Chase looking unsure of the large human holding him captive

Uncle Billy won over Rowan (who's three) with a round of soccer, but I was initially told (in no uncertain terms) that I was NOT invited. Fortunately by the end of the weekend we had successfully convinced both of them that we were actually pretty fun. 

It may have helped our case that we directly facilitate making Rowan taller and able to see things

We were also celebrating Chase's first birthday in addition to Thanksgiving. I'll let the pictures do the talking. We did a lot of binge eating, family bonding (which may or may not have included beer/wine), and Monopoly Deal games (Google it. It's awesome.).

Chase figuring out the intricacies of unwrapping gifts

Aly modeling Chase's new pirate towel. I realize it looks like Rowan's about to hit her, but I'm fairly certain he was just flailing his arms around in excitement over his fire chief towel.

Aly and Dan on Thanksgiving! Aly is digging into the infamous "Green Junk" which is some sort of Jello concoction Billy's family is obsessed with. I'm still working up the nerve to try it.

Me and Billy in front of the Thanksgiving spread (Turkey not pictured)

I almost forgot to add that I saw several manatees, including a baby one. So my life is pretty much complete.