Mother of all blog posts

Whoa nelly.

It's been over a month since I last blogged. I don't even know where to start. December was an absolutely bonkers month, in many awesome ways, and in a few less-awesome ways. And sadly, my little blog was sorely neglected. If it makes you feel any better, my laundry, dishes, dog, and husband were also a bit neglected. And now I am in that negative cycle where I have so much to catch up on, I don't even want to start because it is so intimidating! And then I have other amusing anecdotes that I want to write about, but feel like I can't until I sit down to write a big catch-up of all that I've been doing in the last month. My life is certainly fraught with adversity.

But here I am, back at work, with nothing but the free pebbled ice and my new "Pooped Puppies" calendar, featuring a daily photo of a precious sleeping puppy, to sustain my optimism.

In order to meet the demands of both my desire to chronicle recent happenings, and my ADD regarding writing long summaries, and keeping in harmony with my love of writing lists, I have decided to write an A-Z of what's been keeping me busy. My mom took tons of great pictures, which I will hopefully get later, but for now there are just some random iPhone pictures.

A. Ate a lot of things. Most notably, rib night with the Reich-cousins, Steak Pit at Snowbird, Tucano's for the Care Bear's birthday, enough Christmas candy to keep chocolate companies in business for the next year, and 1/2 a jar of nutella in one week.

B. Birthday-ed my beloved. It is hard to start a sentance with the word birthday. We went skiing together, opened presents, ate cake, and just celebrated my awesome husband.

C. Christmas. Duh. It was the bomb diggity. After spending a week in Dallas with the Reeves and celebrating a little Christmas with them, we flew out to Utah to spend a week at Snowbird with my family. We spent most of Christmas morning traveling to the airport, flying on the airplane, and driving up to Snowbird, but we were just so darn happy to be on our way to Utah to celebrate Christmas, we were happy as clams. We were spoiled rotten, as usual. Every single time I ask Cary what time it is, he replies with "Time to get a watch!" This has been his response for the entirety of our relationship. So, for Christmas he got me a beautiful watch. That cute stinker. For my Christmas/birthday present to him (and with some help from my extremely generous parents) we got Cary an iPad for Christmas! He loves it. And I love borrowing it.

Love my new watch! And goodness, why does my arm look so weird?

D. Dancing. Of course we had to Just Dance it up this Christmas. I particularly enjoyed Brent and Todd's rendition of "Beautiful Liar." Their hips don't lie. A clip, for your enjoyment:

E. Ellie! Gosh, I love that baby girl! She is so darn cute. I spent as much time as possible holding her, kissing her perfect baby cheeks and smelling her perfect baby head. They need to find a way to make babies stay newborn for just a little longer. I refuse to accept the fact that she will grow up.

Ellie dancing with Grandpa

F. Fizz. I drank a lot of Diet Coke.

G. Got in a little car accident. The day before Anna's (Cary's sister) wedding, I was out running errands with my mother in law and sister in law. We were stopped at light and the car behind us just plowed into our car, knocking us into the car in front of us. Besides some head aches and stiff necks, we were all fine. But nothing like a car wreck to remind you to hug everyone a little tighter.

H. Half Marathon. I ran in a half marathon in November, and then put on a half marathon for the base in December. So I've had half marathon on the brain for quite a while now. One of my goals for 2012 is to run 2 more half marathons. I really enjoyed participating in one, but boy did I not enjoy being in charge of one. It was completely consuming and so stressful. And of course, on the day of the half marathon, it was 40 degrees and raining, which happens about once a year in Del Rio. C'est la vie. The half marathon is a large part of why I have been absent from the blogging world. My job turned from 8 hours of thinking about working and mostly not, to 10 hours of frantically running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Phew. But, overall it was mostly successful, and now it's over!

All the runners who braved the freezing run... Bless them. 

I. Illness. I played hostess to several different sicknesses during the month of December. As soon as I was coming around from one bug, I caught another one. I am just now wrapping up the cold that my little brother so generously gave me for Christmas. Come on immune system, get it together!

J. Joy. I love Christmas time. I'm always sad to see it go. We filled our December with constant "Michael Buble Christmas" station playing on pandora, cookies, hot chocolate, Christmas movies, and the spirit of Christ in our lives. Although the music and decorations may be seasonal, I hope we can continue to keep Him close to our hearts through the year.

K. Kicking and screaming as we had to come back to Del Rio. I was happy to be back to my bed and my friends here, but not so happy to be headed back to real life. Living so far from our families is the hardest thing about our Air Force life. We love them so much, and miss them dearly. And I was not pleased to meet my nemesis, the alarm clock, again. Or to go back to only eating desserts on the weekend. Darn.

L. Laughing. Oh boy, did we do a lot of that. Hilarious youtube vid for your viewing pleasure:

M. Marriage. Cary's sister, Anna, got married over Christmas break and it was so beautiful! She looked radiant and they both looked so happy. I love weddings. Their reception was gorgeous and we had a great time busting a move on the dance floor. Another one of Cary's sisters, Sarah, is getting married  next weekend! We are so happy for both of them! AND, my very best friend Danica got engaged! I love marriage. Highly endorse it.

Anna is so beautiful! Why does my head look so strange?

Gosh, I love that guy.

N. New Years. The Reichman always know how to party on New Year's Eve. We played a little rock band, a little Just Dance, some card games, and ate lots of good food. And went to bed at approximately 12:10, just the way I like it. Cary and I made some 2012 goals, and I thought I'd post a few of them, for accountabilities' sake.
1. Run a half marathon together. (Side goal for Amy: Run a half marathon in under 2 hours)
2. Eat 2 fruits and 2 vegetables every day, which is not so much a struggle for Amy, but is a major struggle for certain members of our household who actually gag when I put peppers or tomatoes into any meals.
3. Read scriptures and pray together daily. I tried to tell Cary that we need to include a falling-asleep-on-the-couch clause, to excuse family members who already fell asleep while watching Malcom in the Middle from having to wake up to read scriptures, but my movement was rejected.
4. Go on a weekly date. Any good ideas for cheap but fun date ideas?
5. Be able to do 1 pull- up. (Just for Amy) (And it's a long shot)

As you can see, it got a little out of hand.

Yikes.

The only picture we took together, in which we both look a bit concerning.

O. Oh goodness. This is getting quite lengthy.

P. Purchased Christmas presents. Living in Del Rio can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to Christmas shopping. I had originally planned on buying everything online, but somehow we found ourselves a week out from Christmas, with zero gifts. So, we spent lots of time driving all over Dallas and Fort Worth in search of Christmas presents. I hate shopping and crowds, so it was a struggle. But we celebrated the end by going to Cheesecake Factory, so I'm calling it a win.

Q. Quitting my job. Oh, how I wish. Not for a couple more months. But unemployment will taste oh so sweet.

R. Reuniting with a friend! While in Colorado in November, I got to see my Del Rio BFF Makamae! It was fantastic. And it also involved Cheesecake Factory. I love that place.

Hooray for friends!

S. Skiing! Even though the snow was terrible, we loved skiing together over Christmas Break! Cary took a couple of lessons, and is getting much better. I think he might actually enjoy skiing now! I enjoyed going down runs as fast as possible, because I hate that schkskchksch sound when you turn on ice, so I just decided against turning. It was a good time. I was so sad to leave Snowbird. Skiing is about the only thing that I am any good at, and I miss being able to ski throughout the winter. Dumb ol' Del Rio.

T. Thankful. We are so blessed.

V. Visited Cary's family that is sprawled across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He has 9 cousins. Visited my family that all came up to Snowbird. I have 50 cousins and first cousins combined. It was nuts. In the best way.

W. Waited patiently to give each other our Christmas gifts! This never happens. I always get too excited and give my gift to him early. I tried several times this year to convince Cary to let us exchange gifts early, but he remained strong. Sources indicate that the reason for his refusal to give me my gift early to be that he had not purchased it until 2 days before Christmas.

X. Xpertly packed our suitcases to weigh 50 lbs each to get ourselves back from Utah with all of our Christmas loot. Also got in trouble for putting a blu-ray player in our carry on. Sheesh. TSA, man. Watch this video:

Y. Yahtzee, Speed scrabble, Nerts, Oh Heck, Rummy, Kinect, Wii frisbee golf. Many tournaments took place. Cary and I cleaned up on Nerts, but I got my fanny handed to me on everything else.

Z. Zzz. The simple joy of not having to set an alarm clock.

Good gravy, that was long. Shorter, better, and funnier updates in the future. Pinkie promise.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!