Early Christmas in the Kinlaw House

As I mentioned in my last Friday Favorites post, we had Christmas at our house before we left for NC. We decided to do it on Wednesday. We were originally going to do it Thursday, mostly to avoid packing unnecessary gifts and driving them to NC then back up here. We realized how much we would have to do on Thursday, and decided to do it Wednesday instead. I'm REALLY glad we did, because Thursday was really busy. 

Our tree needs more lights, and we probably should have taken pictures before we opened half the gifts.

I'm always excited about Christmas, but I was even more excited this year. It's Bailey's first Christmas! I've been looking forward to giving her gifts :-) We got her a new bed, a couple stuffed toys, some balls, a rope with a ball, a freeze dried shish kabob treat and a big bone. She chewed through 2 balls and chewed the ball off the rope within about 30 minutes. We'll have to stick to tennis balls (we got a few of those too) since the doggy balls won't hold up for us. We wrapped the shish kabob and let her rip it open. It was so much fun! 

Look at those holes!

YUM!

This hamburger was too cute! It had a hole in it in 5 minutes.

Since we've been married, we've gotten a joint gift, then separate gifts. I assume we'll continue to do this. This year, our joint gift was this carpet cleaner (and yes, I'm actually excited about using it...we just have to find a free weekend). The price came down a lot from when we were originally looking at it, so I was really excited about that! Josh's mom has the older model and she loves it. We were going to get a TV for the state room, but once it was time for Christmas, football season was almost over. We hadn't found any amazing deals, so we decided to hold off. We're planning on looking again around Super Bowl time to see what kind of deals we can find then. If we don't find what we're looking for then, we'll probably get one just before football season starts again. So...that may or may not be a late joint Christmas present.

I got Josh a glass carboy for brewing. A plastic one came with the kit I got him for his birthday and he's been wanting a glass one for a while now. I got him the new Call of Duty a couple months back, and he insisted that it should be a Christmas present. That would have been our budget if I would have listened. Since it was so long ago, and since I wanted him to have at least a few surprises, I decided to only count it as a fraction of a gift. Haha. I got him a couple other little things that he's mentioned over the past few months.

This is the only picture I got of either of us with our gifts.

When Josh asked me what I wanted for Christmas, all I could think of was a Kindle and a couple house related things. He decided against house related things because he wanted me to have something I would enjoy. I didn't get to open the Kindle during our early Christmas because Josh had it shipped to his mom's house. It would have been obvious if a little Amazon box showed up at our front door. Haha. I knew I was getting it because I had an Amazon gift card in my stocking. I've used it for Kindle accessories and a couple books :-) That alone would have been a little more than what we planned to spend on each other since he paid extra for the Kindle without the ads (I had no idea they even had ads!). I did get to open a couple small gifts though. Josh had picked up some of the things I wanted to buy myself on Black Friday. He talked me out of spending my money. So thoughtful. :-)

We had a great Christmas and I really enjoyed the time we got to spend with just the 3 of up :-)

Friday Favorites!

I'm posting this early...or else it will be late again.


1) Christmas - I LOVE Christmas. It's tied with Thanksgiving for my favorite holiday :-). Good food, family, friends...what's not to love? Not to mention gifts of course. Everybody loves those. This Christmas was a little more laid back than some we've had, and we still managed to spend a decent amount of time with everyone!

2) Kenya - While we were home for Christmas, Bailey got to play with her little sister AND Natalia. It's important to us that she interacts well with all types of dogs and kids. She did great with both!

Bailey is so interested in the people toys. I'm not sure what's up with Kenya's face.

3) Brewing - We brewed our fourth beer when we got home Monday afternoon. We bought all our supplies last week so we would be ready. Fortunately, we didn't have any trouble with traffic and there was plenty of time to brew! We decided on an English Bitter. We wanted something sort of generic that you can drink any time (the pumpkin was great, but it was one of those beers you have to be in the mood for).

4) Belk Bowl - Unfortunately, we were not able to make it to our bowl game this year. The timing just didn't work out for us :-/. We did enjoy watching it at home and looking on the bright side, we saved a lot of money by not going. It was a good game and I was definitely excited for another Wolfpack W!

5) Short work week - I don't think this one needs an explanation. Haha.

6) De-cluttering - We got rid of a lot of the stuff we've been keeping in our garage, and we made a trip to Goodwill. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, so it's a bit of a weight off my shoulders. We're one step closer to being able to park in our garage! Haha.

Friday Favorites!

This is a little late...again...


1) Early Christmas - We always celebrate Christmas with Josh's grandparents early. This past weekend, we drove down to VA to visit with them for a while. It was really nice to see everyone and catch up. We also got to stop at COOKOUT while we were there. Josh's uncle told us there was one in VA, but I had forgotten all about it. Josh remembered and asked if I wanted to go. Ummm...YES!

2) Dogsitting - While we were gone, we left Bailey with my co-worker. This was the first time she's ever spent the night away from us. I'm not going to lie, it was nice to have a break from the regular night and morning routine. It was so much faster getting ready! I did miss her a lot though. I was so glad she had another dog to play with all weekend. She was exhausted when we picked her up Sunday afternoon :-)

3) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not. I tried to read this book a while back and I just couldn't get into it. After several suggestions from friends, I decided to tough it out and give it another shot. I'm so glad I did! I finished it earlier in the week, now I'm making my way through The Girl who Played with Fire.

4) Early Christmas #2 - We decided to open our gifts before going home for Christmas. It just didn't make sense for us to load everything up in the car, drive it to NC, open them and drive them all right back down...especially since our car is always packed to the max anyway! Plus, I really like being able to enjoy OUR family time. It's great to open gifts with ALL of the family, but we'll still have things to open at each house, so it's fine that our gifts from each other aren't there. I'll probably have a separate post about this later :-)

5) Ride home - We left work a little early on Friday so we could get on the road and hopefully avoid traffic. We took a route to bypass DC. I really enjoy having time to just talk on our trips. We had a smooth trip with hardly any traffic. We got to Josh's mom's a little before 11 and just talked for a while. She had a gift wrapped for Bailey and we let her open it when we got there.

Separation Anxiety?

Bailey has been doing well for the most part. She's doing great at day camp when we take her. She did well when we were dog sitting and she did well when a friend was sitting her for us. She's doing well on walks and she's not having accidents in the house. 

It's not all good though...I've been thinking she may have a bit of separation anxiety for a while now, but I thought I was just making excuses for her behavior. I kept pushing it out of the back of my mind and telling myself she was tearing things up because she's a puppy and she'll grow out of it, she's bored, blah blah blah. It's not just tearing stuff up though. She barks, whines, etc. a lot when we leave and she won't stay in a room alone. I used to think she just followed us everywhere because she was curious, but I think it's because she's scared to be alone. I kept making other excuses for all the behaviors that were concerning me. She didn't always have these issues. When we were in our apartment she never tore anything up and she didn't whine when we left her. She would sometimes let us be in a different room without getting upset. It didn't happen immediately when we moved in the house. I wish I could pinpoint when it started to happen, but I can't. I can figure out when she started to be destructive with things other than her toys (thanks to this blog and her weekly updates), but I can't remember if she started freaking out when we left around that same time. 

This kind of freaking out is bad. Really bad. Our carpet is brand new. I'm not ready to replace it. So...back to the crate it is for my poor baby.

Bailey had to go to the vet to get a Lyme booster last week. While we were there we talked to the vet about our concerns. Of course he can't be sure, but he agrees that it sounds like separation anxiety. We talked about what we can do to address the problem. We talked about the different steps we could take and little things to hopefully make things easier on her. We've started her on a natural supplement called Composure. We want to use this combined with some behavioral things (crating her and leaving her for short periods of time, leaving a TV or radio on for her, etc.). Of course there are medications, but we definitely don't want to go that route. If things don't improve at all, we may have to take her to see an animal behaviorist. I don't think it will get that extreme. We just have to work with her consistently so it doesn't get worse. 

I keep trying to figure out if there's something we did to provoke this. I don't know what caused it, but I do think we have been making it worse without realizing it until recently. Bailey used to be REALLY bad for sprinkling on the floor a little when we came home from work. To try to prevent this, we would just ignore her for a few minutes when we got home. Once we got her outside and she calmed down some, we would talk to her and pet her. Now that she doesn't do that anymore, we have started talking to her, hugging her and playing with her as soon as we get in. We have recognized this and we're trying to make leaving and coming home from work as insignificant as we possibly can. I know it will take some time and lots of trial and error before we start to see any major improvement. I feel so guilty leaving her now, because I know she absolutely hates it :-/

Friday Favorites!

This week DRAGGED, so I'm definitely happy to see Friday!

1) Christmas shopping...is over! Don't get me wrong, I love shopping for the people I love most, but it's so nice to be finished. I am making a couple things, and I still have quite a bit of work to do for those, but no more shopping for me until the after Christmas sales!

2) Dog sitting - As I mentioned in last week's post, Josh and I dog-sat for a co-worker last weekend. It went very well overall and I think it was great for Bailey and Pete. Bailey has WAY more energy, but it gave us a good opportunity to try to teach her when enough is enough.

3) Camp Bow Wow - This isn't the first time they have been on my Friday favorites list, and I'm sure it won't be the last. This Wednesday, they had a discounted day camp price, Santa, a dog chef and wine and finger foods for the humans! Josh and I tasted some of the food and wine while we watched Bailey play with the other dogs on the monitors. We checked her out then got in line to meet Santa. I thought she would bark a lot because she's so funny with new things sometimes. She didn't bark one bit! She was very well behaved, even with the new dogs that were in the lobby. She usually gets SUPER excited around new dogs. I'm sure this was partially because she was exhausted. One lady did come up to her and talk in a very high pitched voice. That ALWAYS gets Bailey really excited. She jumped up on her (we're still working on that) and made her spill her wine. That was the only thing she did wrong. We went to talk to The Dog Chef for a few minutes and Bailey got to sample his food. She enjoyed the food, but it would cost us more than we spend on our own groceries to order from him. I think we'll stick to her current food for now :-)

4) Haircut - When I got my last haircut in October, I decided to leave some length on and just get a trim. I've been regretting it since the next day. I got my hair cut today and it's short and much more manageable again! I love it! I'll post pictures at some point. My camera is due back on Monday.


5) Date - Josh and I both love historical Ellicott City. The salon I went to for my haircut was just a few minutes away, so we decided to take a look around for somewhere to grab a bite to eat. We ended up finding Ellicott Mills Brewing Company. I love brewery/restaurants. The beer is always good and chances are, the food is too. I tried an Aussie style beer and alligator. Josh got a burger and another type of beer. It was all delicious! The atmosphere was great too. I love spontaneous dates!

Friday Favorites!

1) Christmas decorating - I LOVE decorating for Christmas! We put up our tree last Saturday afternoon. I've been adding a little each day. I made a wreath to put up, but it fell and when that happened, half the ornaments fell off. I need to fix it up and re-hang it. 

2) Homebrew #3 - Our holiday beer was ready for us to try on Saturday. We shared one while we decorated the tree. It was better than I expected it to be :-) Now we're trying to figure out what #4 will be!

3) Spontaneous date night - We had a groupon and decided to use it this week for a date night. We never really go on dates during the week (and we probably wouldn't have this time if it wasn't expiring!) so it was a nice change of pace.

4) Doggy buddy - I think we finally have a doggy buddy! One of my co-workers watched Bailey while we went on our date. It was only for a short time, but it was nice to know she wasn't at home annoying our neighbor with bionic ears. It was kind of a trial run to make sure they can get along well. We're dog sitting him this weekend.

5) Holiday party! - Josh's company's Holiday party was last night at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. We had a great time and I got to meet a lot of his co-workers. There was a cocktail hour and a half (the coordinator said an hour just isn't enough haha) followed by an AMAZING dinner, raffles and dancing. They had some great gifts, buy we didn't win anything. I don't have pictures because I still don't have my camera back, but we should have a picture that they took of us at some point :-) It was so nice to be able to get dressed up to go somewhere. I think we might get a room and take Bailey somewhere so we don't have to worry about what time we're getting home or who's driving. 

Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving holiday was eventful to say the least. It's one of my favorite holidays, so I've been looking forward to it!

I got off work a little early the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We packed the car that morning before work, so all I had to do is pick up Bailey and break down her crate. We hopped in the car and picked Josh up from work. We got on the road around 3:30. We didn't expect to get home before 1am, but traffic wasn't nearly as bad as we expected. I could have told you when we got to NC just by the radio. We heard Scotty McCreery as much in that last few hours as we would in a week up here! Haha. Anna and John were driving to Raleigh from Miami that same night. It was kind of fun keeping up with where they were in relation to us, it gave us something different to do. We ended up passing them on 95! We got home around 11:30. I was completely exhausted, but we still ended up staying up until about 2:30 catching up with the family. We stay at Josh's mom's when we go home. His grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin all come down from Virginia. We only get to see them a few times a year, so there's always so much to catch up on. 

Where's Daddy going?

Thanksgiving is always a busy day for us, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We typically have 3 Thanksgiving dinners. We've been in this same routine for years, so it's something we didn't have to work out when we got married. Haha. We get up early and spend time with everyone, then we eat at Josh's mom's around 12ish. We go to my mom's house after that for round 2. (This is usually when Josh takes a nap.) We eat again there, hang out for a while, then go to Josh's aunt's to visit his dad's side of the family. We eat a little bit again, hang out some more, then go back to Josh's mom's. We've been doing this for years, so I have a strategy now. I just pick my favorite foods at each house and keep the portions small. Josh loads his plate down during round 1, then he picks off my plates at the other stops. He'll figure it out one day :-) This year, we weren't able to make the 3rd stop, so we just visited Josh's dad at his house on the way back to Lumberton. 

Bailey LOVED playing in the leaves at my mom's!

My favorite!

Black Friday shopping is also another tradition for us. Josh's family always goes together. I've been going with them for the past 8ish years. We get up ridiculously early and go to the Lumberton mall for Mickey Mouse snow globes and such. We go to Hardee's for breakfast and to chat a bit. After this, we go to the mall in Fayetteville. This year, we had to stop at my mom's to drop Bailey off. She was nice enough to baby sit while we were shopping. The mall in Fayetteville is usually pretty crowded (but not like the crazy Black Friday crowds you see on TV). This year, the crowd was pretty thin. There was a shooting early that morning. No one was hurt, but it still kept the crowd away. We didn't know about it until we were on our way there. We got SO much of our Christmas shopping done, so it was definitely worth one busy day. We picked up a few odds and ends for ourselves too. After we finished shopping, we met back up with the family for milkshakes at COOKOUT :-D. We stopped by my mom's house to visit with my family for a little while longer, then we left for Raleigh. 

We went to our friend Spenser's house and Bailey got to meet his dog, Abby. They got along really well. We went out Friday night and caught up with several friends. We stayed out quite a bit later than we had planned, so we didn't get much sleep before we had to get up to get ready for the tailgate! After we got ready, we dropped Bailey off at another friend's house. We made arrangements for Bailey to stay at his house and play with his dog while we were at the football game. Bailey had MUCH more energy, but they still got along very well. Then...we were off to tailgate! It was SO good to be back at our old stomping grounds! We had a great time tailgating with our friends. Our game was looking horrible during the first half. We put up a fight and ended up making a huge comeback! It was awesome! After the game, I was SO exhausted. After getting less than 5 hours of sleep 3 nights in a row, I wanted nothing more than to just sleep. Since we were going to be leaving early the next morning, we toughed it out and went to dinner since it's going to be a while before we see everyone again. Once we got back I showered and crashed. I haven't been that tired since my wedding! 

We were planning on leaving at 7am to head home. We were hoping to beat the traffic. I wasn't paying attention when I set my alarm clock. It was set for Monday-Friday only. It was after 7 when we woke up. We ended up getting on the road around 9:30. We had to make a few stops to get breakfast and gas, then we finally got on the road. I drove home this time. It's always a bit hard on me leaving, but this time was by far the hardest. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's time for the holidays? I have no clue. It was just so hard driving away. Josh asked me what was bothering me and I just started crying like a big baby. I don't know why that happens. I can talk to other people and keep a straight face. So weird. Anyway, literally right after I started crying about missing home we blew a tire. We pulled over, unloaded all our stuff and Bailey's, and changed the tire. I walked Bailey while Josh got started. Then, the car started rolling. Yup, like an idiot, I forgot to turn on the E-break. We ended up getting the spare on, but we warped our jack in the process. We were only about an hour into the trip at that point. We were searching for somewhere to get the tire changed, but we were having trouble finding a place off 85 that was open the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We kept on driving and we finally just stopped at a Wal-Mart in VA. Traffic wasn't bad at that point, but we couldn't go the speed limit since we were riding on the spare. When we finally got a new tire and got back on the road, the traffic was horrible! We ended up getting home around 5:30. That's not so bad, but we were originally planning on getting home around 1 or so. 

Once we got home, I was fine. The homesick thing works kind of different for me. While I'm here, I'm fine here. I have no desire to move back to NC in the immediate future (but I do want to end up back there eventually). It's when I'm actually there that I miss it, and just as we're leaving, I don't want to go just yet. I don't really know why that is. Josh thinks it's because I get to visit people I love and miss when we're in town. I don't have to get up and go to work, I get to hang out with friends, go to football games, and just get out of the normal routine. Maybe he's right. He always talks some since back into me and reminds me that Raleigh wouldn't be the way it is when we visit if we lived there. I know that, and I think that's why I'm in no hurry to get back. I think I just don't want the visits to end because I enjoy the break from work and home maintenance. Haha