wonderful christmas time

Ben and I took the weekend to do some Christmas shopping and to finally put up the tree and decorations. We grew some sunflowers out in our garden this summer and the remaining dead flowers look really sad in the yard. So Ben made them look even more pathetic by decorating them as a sad little tree. He thinks its great, I think it looks sad and dead. What do you think?



We also put up our cute little Christmas tree. Someday we may give in and get a full sized one, but for now, this one is the perfect size.



Then we put up the stockings. The cats have four stockings. (two are just toys from last year) and Ben has one. I don't have a stocking here, mine is still at my parent's house.



I love this stocking because the kitty looks like Tiger Lily. Yes we are "those people" who are obsessed with their cats. It's what I have to work with until we have kids, kay?



And here is Ben's cute little stocking. We don't really have a good place to hang them, so they kind of randomly hang from the ceiling all over the living room.

We are almost done with gift shopping. I am very relieved. I am sad to report that due to our work schedules we will not be traveling to Rifle this year. While I am glad to not have to worry about the weather and the roads, I will miss my family. :(

I know it's been a while

I bet you all thought I forgot about this blog, but I haven't. I still like to read other people's posts all the time. I just never feel like my exploits are worth sharing.

This weekend Ben and I took advantage of my deeply discounted employee rates and stayed at the Downtown Marriott. We had a delightfully delicious dinner at the Melting Pot. My problem with going downtown is that there is nowhere to park. We were going to be late until the hostess suggested using their valet.

We had a nice dinner with cheese fondue as an appetizer, a salad and then a variety of chicken, duck, pork, steak and vegetables cooked in a mojo style. We decided against dessert.



Then we must have waited 25 minutes for the valet to get our car. I was pissed. It was cold outside, and they do not have heaters like other restaurants do. For that money and time, we could have parked 5 blocks away and hoofed it. How hard is it to find a purple Honda Fit? I could tell the valet knew he did a bad job when he finally brought the car up, so I didn't feel guilty about not paying or tipping. We were supposed to pay $4 for the valet, but he didn't even wait or ask for it.

Later that night we decided to ride Trax down to the Library station to go to the Salt Lake Roasting company. We ended up paying $4 on tickets before we realized we were still in the free fare zone. So we paid the money regardless. :) We went to the roasting company because they have really good desserts. Even if you don't drink coffee they have really good cheesecake, flan, cookies, muffins, you name it. Ben got a chai and a fruit covered cake thing. I had a slice of chocolate raspberry cake. So good.



Ben ended up spilling his chai all over me and breaking the glass on the table. I had little shards of glass in my lap. It made me look like I'd wet my pants, plus it made the walk back to pants a lot colder. :( He felt very bad about it though, and is still apologizing. The Roasting Co was pretty nice about the broken glass too.

The next morning we checked out pretty early and found this little diner Ben had been to like 20 years ago to have breakfast. It was called Over the Counter cafe. It was packed and very much a greasy spoon, but absolutely great. The kind of place you'd see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

It was nice to get away even for a night. We are planning a big trip next year, and we will be saving, so we won't be able to do this kind of thing as often. So it's nice to take advantage when we can.
School is almost out for the semester and I can't wait for the break!