I wish blueberries were cheaper.

I wish for blueberry muffins.

I wish I had more budget money for food.

I wish food was less expensive.

I wish for Bill’s Chinese Food.

I wish for more grapefruits.

I wish for more fiber.

I wish strawberries were in season so I could make strawberry ice cream.

I wish bananas stayed perfectly ripe a little longer.

I wish I ate more vegetables.

I still wish for Bill’s Chinese food.

I wish McFlurries didn’t upset my tummy and make me grumpy.

I wish I were better at drinking water.

I wish we did better at eating left overs.

I wish for delicious salads in perfect portions.

Good thing it’s a New Year! Haha. Can you tell I think about food sometimes? Well tonight I’m debating between a piece of toast (homemade bread and jam) or Frosted Flakes. It’s a dilemma.

I am super duper quadruple excited for 2009! It’s going to be a great year… I can feel it! We spent the evening with our friends, Brandon and EmmaLee and their son, Jaymz. Couldn’t have been a better night; we played games and ate yummy food. Come midnight, we counted down and then the boys smashed a coconut that Brandon and EmmaLee had brought home from their recent trip to Hawaii. It was great!

Warning: in these photos I’m a little razzled and if I recall correctly I was getting to my “past sleep and incredibly goofy phase.” In short, I don’t look too good!

My Permanent Resident Card (greencard) came in the mail yesterday! For obvious reasons I won’t be taking a photo of it and sharing it here on my blog. It’s pretty nifty though! It’s not quite green. One side is foil and very reflective and the other side has my photo and information. It’s fun to have it! My SSN still hasn’t come yet and so I have to contact the Social Security Administration and see what the deal is. I’m really, really hoping I don’t need to go to an office! I know Conor’s experience there a couple years ago was less than ideal and he’s a legit citizen of the USA.

On another note, I can get my citizenship in 3 years (November 2011) rather than 5 because I’m married to and living with a US citizen. I am having second thoughts about getting citizenship to the USA though so we’ll see…

And now that the immigration stuff is over with, I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself!

Oh what a day! I could not sleep a wink past 6:30 and after unsuccessfully attempting to fall back to sleep, I decided that Conor and I should just get up because I knew he wasn’t quite sleeping either. So at 7 am we arose and made a beeline for our stockings. We must have been good this year, because Santa was quite good to us! To be honest, we had quite a leisurely morning opening up gifts. We did our stockings and then worked our way around to the gifts we gave each other. I was so impressed that Conor didn’t guess what I was giving him especially since I pretty much told him. And he could not guess the Dominoes for the life of him. Oh, I gave him some Bose headphones. I’m not sure they are the best thing to give from my side because they block all sound, but Conor is enjoying them… Conor gave me some great gifts this year, including an incredible stocking! He also gave me 8 bowls, all different colours from Anthro. We have some dishes we’d like to start phasing out. And Conor gave me a great coat that I really wanted but never talked about. How did he know?? Plus, I had already said to myself that I don’t need another wool coat, I already have one. But I do need this coat and am so glad I have it! I have to exchange it for one size smaller, but that’s no big deal. And we did end up exchanging Christmas Eve gifts, which were slippers!!

We ate a hearty breakfast of waffles, cool whip and strawberries with yummy OJ. Christmas is no time for a grocery budget in my opinion. We opened up gifts from Conor’s parents, using ichat as a Christmas portal. Get this, one of the gifts addressed to Conor was actually for me! Conor opened it up only to discover another box wrapped and addressed to me! Very tricky! Conor really took it like a man and I took it like a giddy little girl because hey, who doesn’t like one more surprise gift? Score! Within were pasta-making attachments for my kitchenaid mixer! So excited. And it truly is a gift for Conor too. We had quite the morning!

In the afternoon, we went over to the Jensen’s and enjoyed a low-key, quiet Christmas. Conor enjoyed being a little boy again with Owen and I especially enjoyed cooking with Lisa. We love the Jensens and are so grateful to have them as our home away from home!

We had such a wonderful Christmas and feel so blessed with abundance! I have to admit that I’m already thinking of things for next Christmas; gifts, traditions and what fun it’s going to be!

Oh, we ichatted with the Muirheads and Cora says to us, “When are you coming for dinner, how ‘bout 5?” So cute! We had to explain to Freyja and Cora that we won’t be there for Christmas, but that we’ll be there next year and gave then a timeline as to when we’d see them next. We’ll be there next Christmas. I promise!

My new bowls. There is also a darker blue one and a red one!

We had a great Christmas! We received a surprise package on Christmas Eve day and even though I arrived at the post office 10 minutes past close, I was still able to pick it up! It was from my parents and I knew it contained cookies and “a few other little things,” but there weren’t little things in there! It was a fabulous Christmas surprise!

We did stay here in Denver, although we seriously considered flying home on Christmas Day (after we had opened our gifts) to surprise everyone. It’s not as delicious of a surprise when I’m writing about it and it didn’t happen, but it sure would’ve been sweet. We will be home for Christmas next year! Conor and I have gotten good at Christmases on our own. We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas Eve together, cutting gingerbread men, playing cards, well, Conor did declare that he’s never playing Uno again and was choked he didn’t beat me by more when we played a game of Crib. We topped our evening off with the movie, Elf and did our best to fall into dreams of sugar plums only to discover that we get too razzed up at Christmastime to sleep! Myself included, shocking!

Conor had a mullet. The proof is on our tree!

Conor’s “creatively” run-over and twisted gingerbread men.