Yeah yeah yeah

...I know, I know. I haven't posted in forever. Forgive me.  (There, that's done, now let's get on with it!)

Where did I leave off? (Ugh... that reminds me. My ?/ key is stuck and I have to press very hard to get a ? or / to appear. How obnoxious.) OH- Right! Josh and I were about to embark on a journey to the East side of the state, otherwise known as Bay City and Frankenmuth. So, how did it go? It was FAN-freaking-TASTIC! We had so much fun. The drive up went by quickly and we were able to visit and have a few drinks with some of my Bay City friends. Friday we drove down to Frankenmuth and made our first stop at Bronners. We spent almost 3 hours in this store. Seriously, I didn't think Josh had it in him. But he was like a kid in a candy store! Sometimes I swear he has ADD because he loves to look and touch and gets easily distracted by shiny objects... like snow globes, for example. He felt the need to shake almost every snow globe in the store. And there were a lot. So, what did we purchase?

This was Josh's idea - our first personalized Christmas ornament : )

My grandparents celebrated 50 years of marriage on Halloween so we got them an ornament commemorating their anniversary.

We also got my mom and Jim this obnoxious pug ornament (again, Josh's idea) for Frank. Obvs it doesn't say Pugsley on it (seriously, who would name their Pug Pugsley? That's a cop-out and it's annoying.) We bought stockings for Josh's house - his has a glittery reindeer and mine has a snowman - and a tree skirt. Now, I have to admit, I think this Christmas is going to be a test of how well Josh and I can 'mesh' because his idea of a pretty Christmas tree is not the same as mine. He describes his style as "hodge-podge" which I can appreciate. If I had 3 kids who each made me an ornament every year then I would love hodge-podge as well. However, I am childless (happily childless, let me emphasize) and I don't have any hand made ornaments. What I do have is a set of brown, sage, and pink plaid ornaments with matching sage green and pink solid glittery ornaments and sparkly brown ribbon for my tree. I have a scheme. However, since Josh is letting me put the tree up at his house, I decided he should have some say in what it looks like. His contribution: blue ornaments. Some with glittery reindeer (not sure what his infatuation with glittery reindeer is, by the way). So, it's not going to match my scheme. But I'm letting go because it's all about compromising, right? So it doesn't matter if I don't have a Martha Stewart-esque tree, it will be original because it's Josh and me... .right? I think I got caught up in the Christmas compromising spirit because I also bought a new tree skirt - a John Deere tree skirt. Yes, that's right folks. Not only will I have blue ornaments in my brown-pink-green scheme, I'll also have a John Deere tree skirt. Don't get me wrong, I love me a big green tractor as much as the next girl, but I never would have thought I'd have a John Deere tree skirt. Oh well... our tree will definitely be special this year.

We also stopped by the Popcorn Wagon in Frankenmuth and got some snack sized bags of our favorites. White Cheddar for Josh and Extra Terrestrial for me. Josh's is pretty self-explanatory, but let me tell you about the savory goodness of my pick: peanut butter and chocolate covered popcorn with Reese's Pieces mixed in (get it? Extra Terrestrial? ET loved Reese's Pieces?? Don't worry, it took me about 3 days to realize that, but I was super excited when I did!) It was SO good - I'm half tempted to order some for Josh's stocking.

We ate lunch at the Bavarian Inn and it was SOO good. Josh loves their chicken and we both loved the saurkraut! YUMMM! We visited their store and mixed and matched a 6 pack of beers from around the world. I'm looking forward to drinking them and comparing : ) Then we stopped at the St. Julian's Winery where I proceeded to buy 2 bottles of their R'07 Riesling (for $10 total - complete steal!), a bottle of their Red Concord, and a bottle of the Peach Spumante. Josh is buying me a wine rack for Christmas : ) YAY!

On the way home we decided to stop in Lansing and watch Couples Retreat, which was a really fun date movie.We both enjoyed it. Then we had dinner at Johnny Rocket's since I had never been there. All in all it was a really fun date-day/mini vacation for the both of us!