I had every intention of making a long blog post, but I'm losing interest quickly. Bad enough this has been sitting here open for over 2 hours, and I am just now typing something. Anyway, a quick update:

   Work is good. my contract got extended again, this time until, the end of March. Hopefully something permanent comes up before then. I'm sure I could try to use an "in" to get something good, but um, no thank you. I feel bad enough that I got hired as a temp mostly because my mother-in-law recommended me for the job. I DO NOT want that to be the case if I get hired on permanently. I want it to be because I do great work & am an asset to the team. NOT because I'm friends with someone or related to them. That's kind of why I'm not beaten up that I didn't get hired in my cousin's old job; I don't want people to think I was handed anything. I hate people who rely solely on who they know to make something of themselves.

   The only issue with work is a co-worker who doesn't like me for some reason. She's been extremely rude & mean to me ever since I helped a temp she was training last spring. Ever since that day, she either ignores me, is mean to me or is extremely rude. She even went so far as to give every person on our team a Christmas card, except for me. Honestly, I didn't want one anyway, because it would have been fake. However, when I did them for the team, I was sure to give them to EVERYBODY on our team. I was a grown ass woman & made myself be an adult. Not give me a card, she hung up all the cards she was given, except for mine. WTF is that??? BE AN ADULT!!!

   Our anniversary trip was amazing. It was SO nice to get away from everything & be together for 4 days straight. The only downfall was that I was a moron & didn't wet my hair before getting in the pool & hot tub, which gave me some bright green highlights. I was mortified. In all my life as a blonde, that's never happened. I guess I should consider myself lucky. It took about a week for the green to go away on its own. Other than that, the trip was wonderful. The bar & grill had great food & an awesome bartender that comped us one round of drinks since it was our anniversary that weekend. We got some shopping in at the outlets in North Conway, which is where Ryan bought me a beautiful diamond wedding band:

   Ryan bought himself a nice pair of Timbs & some new clothes from American Eagle. We also did a bit of Christmas shopping. It was very nice. It was hard for both of us to go to work again after the long weekend together :(

   The holidays were good. On Christmas Eve, we went to my mother-in-law's house to do Christmas there around noon. It was nice. We headed to Gram Rawski's to do Christmas there...It was a great night!! Then Christmas morning I woke up at 5am to put ham & broccoli chowder on to bring to my cousin's for Christmas dinner. Went back to bed, then got up around 9am to open presents with mum, dad, Kirstin, Ryan & Captain. Everyone had a great Christmas! Everyone loved the presents we gave them :) Christmas was AWESOME up at my cousin's house...Great food, some of the best family ever, tons of laughs & love...What more can you ask for?? Ryan & I got to meet the new bird, Millie, in case we house sit again this year. Later that afternoon we headed to the Chagnon side of the family for Christmas there, as well as DJ's birthday. All in all, a great holiday!

   New Year's Eve I worked until 6pm, then we all headed up to my cousin's again to ring in the New Year, just like every other year. It was awesome, as always. The guys all played poker except for Uncle Herb & my cousin Jaime. Jamie played Blurt with all of us ladies. Lisa & Melissa made 200 jello shots again this year, and we did a good job consuming them. We even built a tower:

   It was a great time had by all. I love our family get togethers! We have started doing them a bit more often again....Still nothing like when Papa was still alive though, which is quite sad...Speaking of Papa, I've been preparing myself to look through some old pictures of him & make copies for myself...Gonna be hard...

   Ryan & I are hoping our tax return is decent this year, so we can continue paying things off. Hopefully if all goes well, we can look into getting a VA loan & start looking for a house...Looks like we're leaning towards living in NH, which is alright by both of us...We'll still be close to family, and that's very important to both of us...

   Ryan is doing really well at work...He has crew trainer class this week, and should know after that if he's being promoted. I really hope he does, because he wicked deserves to be! I'm so proud of him :)