Christmas in Dallas 2013

I've taken an almost 1 month hiatus but now I'm BACK!  I fully intended on writing while I was in Dallas but it just tends to get away from you.  So yeah...we've been in Dallas for 2 weeks and we're finally back in the swing of things, getting caught up with life.  Our trip was fun and wonderful as it always is, but this trip felt a lot more...busy!  We felt spread vveerryyy thin among two sets of parents, two sets of siblings, extended families, and multiple friend groups.  It's a great problem to have, but it also felt like we couldn't have good solid quality time with our peeps cause I always felt guilty for not being somewhere else or was checking the clock cause we were gonna be late for something with somebody!  I feel the need to apologize to everyone we encountered for this very issue BUT...I'm comforted by the fact that this will be our last trip home before we officially move back for good.  Which is weird.  But exciting.  More on that later.

Here are some pics and highlights from our trip home:

We had our annual Chrismukkah party again this year and it was a hit!

Pic with my b-fri Molly, because she never gets any cred in my photos!  Woohoooo

Happy pic of my other party peeps towards the end of the night.

 And let's not forget the main attraction...our precious Annie!  We were basically...wherever she was.  And it was worth every minute with her.

Reading with Uncle Drew.

She followed me outside after she finished making banana muffins with Drew - sporting her apron, timer, and hat.

Cutie's brave parents let her venture to Shepler's BY HERSELF with us so we could buy her her first pair of cowboy boots!  It went mostly well until she started knocking over several racks of hats with reckless abandon.  There were tears.  A stuffed Bevo was the only solution so we bought that for her too.

Only picture I have surrounding Christmas.  Nothing with the rest of my family or with Drew's family.  I suck.  But look at the bebe police officer!

Caitlin's parents have a party every year on Christmas night so we decided to pop over there for the first time ever.  It was fun!

Blakely came in town not once, but TWICE!  Wine night with Mere and I.  Yay!

And this is the only picture I have with my sista and Blakesta...and we're conveniently telling him goodbye.  Just like he'd been waiting all week for us to do.  We had a lot of fun with them both too and shout out to Bethie for letting us use her room the entire time!

For New Year's Eve, a small group of us went to dinner at Neighborhood Services and then to a local watering hole, One Nostalgia Place (or Cocktails and Dancing) to ring in the new year with a bunch of random people.  And some karaoke.

Chad was nailing it on this Pearl Jam song.
I'm choosing not to post the videos of Caitlin and myself performing "Mustang Sally" as I sound...pretty unbelievable.

Nell and Peter met up with us after their other party!  Woohoo

New Year's Smoochies!

 The next day, John, Lauren, and Annie returned, which means I devoted the rest of my life to them.  Thus the rest of this blog will be devoted to her.  #sorrynotsorry

Isn't she the most beautiful child?
#mynieceiscuterthanyours

Modeling her new boots!  She walked around like she'd just gotten off of a horse or like she couldn't figure out what they were, but I imagine she'll break them in with time.

She was reading a book with Poppy so I decided to put on makeup.  She jumped off his lap and raced over to me and started playing with all my brushes.  Silly bebe.

Drew was eating breakfast after Bebe finished and she asked if she could have some.  She proceeded to finish his entire bowl....

And then move on to mine.  She even dug her hands in there to get the raisins out of my Raisin Bran!  My favorite part!    That sneak.

She cuddled up to Drew like this multiple times so she could watch videos of herself on our phones.  She loves those things.

And lastly...she was playing around in my suitcase while I was packing.  I was this close to zipping it up and running out the door.  Sigh.

It was a great break and it was so good to be home, as it always is.  It went by in a flash but we'll be back before we know it.

I fully anticipate writing a lot more soon, because I actually have things to write about.  So I'll be back tomorrow.  Goodnight!

Copenhagen

This holiday season, Drew and I had been planning on hitting up a city with a good Christmas market since we went to London last year.  We did lots of research and determined that the freezing cold city of Copenhagen would be the lucky winner.  It was a super quick trip, taking the 7am flight on Saturday morning and coming home at 11pm on Sunday night, but it was worth it.  We focused less on sight-seeing during this trip and more on being festive and finding cool Christmasy things to see and do.

The city itself is beautiful.  Old, covered in snow, a lot like Amsterdam - and absolutely. freaking. freezing.  It was truly the coldest we've been in years.  Scotland was really cold too but we don't remember our toes losing feeling and being in excruciating pain at the same time.  It. was. COLD.  But that didn't stop us!  And the pouring rain on Sunday didn't stop us either!  

I don't know a lot about Copenhagen.  I did a lot of research on tourist attractions in the city but I don't really know any spiffy facts to impress you with.  So anyways, here are some pics!

We trekked through a snow covered park to our hotel, then wandered around the city and found Bof & Ost.  Copenhagen is kinda known for these "tapas" style, open-faced sandwiches called Smorrebrod.  We went for it.
Clockwise from top left: herring with capers and onions (mine), Danish chicken salad, roast pork with onions and apples, and more pork with cabbage slaw.  

Nyhavn (literally means "New Harbor"_ is a 17th century waterfront area that looks like something stereotypical you'd see in ol' Denmark.  It's lined with old boats, bars, and cafes.  Super cute.

We were wandering home and a Danish man on a bike rode up next to us and told us to start snapping pictures and take advantage of the buildings with "ze light" behind it.  (Keep in mind that the sun sets there around 3:40pm.)  We obliged.

"Zis is vhere all ze clever heads in government sit."

Another pretty statue with the sun.

Another pretty nondescript building on the water.  See?  I have no clue what I'm looking at and am lost without Rick Steves.

We had another quick cat nap, because that's what we do now, and then we went out to Tivoli Gardens for the Christmas market!

Tivoli is an amusement park and "pleasure garden" built in the 1840s and it's been used for all kinds of things since then.  Now it houses a humongous market full of food, fun, and frivolity!  Or something.

Gluhvein vendor!  Mmmmm!

Trojan...reindeer?

The heart is a symbol of Denmark and they were all over the place!

Churros!!!  Who knew they were popular way up north?  They poured the chocolate over the fried batter and it eventually settled in the bottom of the cone.  I discovered this thick pocket of chocolate and started referring to it as Chocolate Heaven.  "Drew!  Get your churro way down there in Chocolate Heaven, that's where all the good stuff is!  No, Drew, like this...you have to DUNK it into Chocolate Heaven.  Oh man.  I love Chocolate Heaven.  Chocolate Heaven's the best."
#fatkidproblems

Me: Drew!  Let me take a picture of you with your warm Christmas nuts!
Drew: I'll show you some warm Christmas nuts.
Ugh.

Hanging out in the biergarten, trying to warm our feet.  Or forget we ever had any.

Drew read about a delicious meaty place called Nose2Tail and it didn't disappoint.  I got a burger and Drew got a pulled pork sandwich.  Yummm!

They had funny signs all over the wall like "Eat more BACON" or "Have more sex!"
Ok!

 Sunday...was a much slower day, due to the rain.  We ate brunch at another popular place in the gentrifed Meatpacking District, went to the National History Museum, and went to another Christmas market in Christiania.

Brunch at Mother.

Christiana is an old abadoned military base that even eventually became a home to some unsavory squatters.  They then turned it into their own hippy commune and declared themselves independent from...everything.  Copenhagen recognizes them as a "free town" and they basically govern themselves.  They sell lots of weed and other paraphernalia there, but also have a delightful Christmas market where we bought some ornaments and knick-knacks for our future home.  Fun!

I needed a brownie and a hot chocolate for sustenance.  

We had a surprisingly good dinner at the bustling mall that is the Copenhagen airport, and came home exhausted!  While this wasn't the most amazing trip we've been on, the city was cool, the trip was fun, and it served it's joyous holiday purpose.  We're even more ready for Christmas and the countdown to Dallas is in full force!

Goodnight party peeps.

Adios Barthelona

Our last full day in Barcelona was a busy one!  We decided to take a train and a funicular over to Montjuic, a small mountain that slopes along the west side of the city where a lot of the 1992 Olympic stuff is located, and then took a cable car even higher up the mountain to check out the castle!

Beautiful sweeping views of the whole city! 

I hate these pictures, where I'm sitting in front of Drew and look three times the size of him.  Ugh!!

Gotta get the cannon pic in every city we go to.

Spectacular sea!

The castle was originally a military fortress from the 1600s and now it's a "municipal facility".  Cool!

Money shot.

After you take the cable car back down to the middle of the mountain, you can walk along a street that will lead you to the Olympic stadiums, pools, basketball courts, a huge courtyard with a Calatrava radio tower, and a playground!

What's special about this lone merry-go-round, sitting along on a dusty playground, you may ask?  Well, I'll tell you.  

When I was here in college with my best pals, we stumbled across this weird-looking merry-go-round, climbed on, and proceeded to have the best hour of our lives spinning around and around and laughing hysterically at nothing except our child-like happiness.

All 3 of us would get on, and one person would start running as fast as they could around it, and then jump on (like I'm doing here) and enjoy the ride.  It. was. awesome.  

I tried to recreate this now, as I did so many other things about this trip, but...it wasn't the same.  Drew wasn't as obliging, though he did smugly suggest that the merry-go-round probably went faster with me on it now as I was packing some extra pounds in college.  

(If my Spanish madre only made me deep fried cheese croquettes and buttered pasta every day, what was I SUPPOSED to do?  Not eat it!?)

Not as fun without Meredith and Nell and Steph.  Dangit.

There was also this amazingly huge fountain we'd read about (we being our college selves) and we desperately looked all over this mountain side for it.  It was supposed to be enormous and full of lights and music was supposed to be playing as the water shot out.  We came to this dinky fountain and assumed it was it and sat and stared at it sadly.  But also laughed a lot because this dinky fountain was so miserable looking.

But then we climbed down a huge set of stairs and FOUND IT - the Magic Fountain!

Yay!!  Victory!

 These stories are silly and uninteresting to anyone except the 4 of us but I tell them anyway because I'm nostalgic and missing those times.

ANYWAY.  Drew and I went on a tour of my past and then headed over to Camp Nou - the home of the FC BARCELONA Futbol Club!

These guys are evidently the best in the world and this was a bucket list/birthday gift for Drew to be able to check off.  Woohoo!

There were no restaurants around the stadium so we had a bocadillo and a couple of Estrella Damm beers on a hill outside the stadium.  Spanish tailgating at it's finest.

Also, Camp Nou doesn't serve alcohol at their games.  WHAT!?  How am I supposed to enjoy a sports game without a little beer buzz!?  Maybe their Spanish fans get way too crazy and out of control.  That wouldn't surprise me.

Cutie in his new birthday FC Barcelona scarf.

We won!  Yay!

Then I made Drew go back to watch the Magic Fountain performance with me with some more street beers.  It was lovely.

We cabbed it over to a cozy little tapas bar, La Pepita, in the Eixample area, and then walked home beneath the Christmas lights all over the city.  

We stopped back by El Quatre Gats for wine and churros, Drew broke a glass framed picture on the wall by our table, and we got the hell out.  Whoops!  Lo siento.

Barcelona was, and still is, pretty damn magical.  It was clean and beautiful and pretty and Spanish.  And I don't think I've visited another city thus far on this adventure that I want to live in so badly.  One problem I have is often trying to recreate trips - trips other people have taken, trips I've taken in the past,  etc. And I did a little bit of that this time.  But I'm starting to see that I can't really do that anymore, and I gotta create my own memories with my own people (Drew), and embrace the present!  But I like reminiscing too, so sue me.

We left early on Sunday morning and got back to Dublin in time to Skype with our fams and get things done.  It was an increible birthday trip and I can't wait to move to Barcelona!  (In my dreams.)