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Dear Eric,

Seven years ago you kissed me for the first time and asked me to be your girlfriend. I said yes.

It’s been a crazy, sometimes hard, sometimes fun and always exciting seven years. I could write you a really long, kind of corny letter going on about how much I love you but that’s not really me, or you, so I won’t.

I’ll just tell you that you’re the only person I know who can make me laugh until I almost pee my pants (and sometimes do) and make me smile even when I’m grumpy or sad. You make me feel happy and lucky every single day even on the days when you also make me feel mad. I love holding your hand, kissing your cheeks and all our little adventures from traveling across the world together to kayaking in the pacific ocean to making homemade sushi.

And, since Brad Paisley says it better than me, I’ll end this little note with some of the lyrics from the first song we’ll be dancing to as husband and wife in just over five months. I can’t wait for that day and all the ones to come after it.

I thought I loved you then
But now you’re my whole life
Now you’re my whole world
I just can’t believe, the way I feel about you
Like a river meets a sea
Stronger than it’s ever been
We’ve come so far since that day
And I thought I loved you then
…
What I can’t see is how I’m ever gonna love you more
But I’ve said that before…

- P

Why hello there! My absence lasted two days longer than I planned on it. We didn’t get back to Kamloops until late Tuesday night and yesterday was extremely busy with a morning of snowboarding and an afternoon of boxing week shopping, grocery shopping and errand running.

Anyways, I typed this post up last weekend after getting the idea from Caitlin’s blog. Here is a “day in the life” style post based on what I did Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

Christmas Eve:

9:45 am – finally roll out of bed. I took a muscle relaxant for my tweaked back the night before and was so sleepy this morning. I literally could not pull myself out of bed!

10:30 am – eat a buttertart for breakfast and then some of the egg/hashbrown skillet my mom made. Putter around my mom’s house doing not much of anything other than eat a ridiculous amount of cookies and christmas treats.

12:00 pm – Eric and i are braving the masses to do last minute Christmas shopping.

2:00 pm – back at my mom’s house doing last minute Christmas wrapping.

4:00 pm – we start the 45 minute drive out to Eric’s parents house to celebrate Christmas Eve with them.

5:00 – open presents with Eric’s family and then spend some time with them munching on Christmas treats and visiting!

6:30 pm – break out the Monopoly board for a game!

8:00 pm – back to town we go!

9:00 pm – play a game of Clue with my mom and brother. Open one present each from under the tree (a Christmas Eve tradition).

11:30 pm – my mom, brother and Eric start a movie and I go to bed.

Christmas Day:

7:00 am – wake up with a start thinking I slept in too late and missed picking my grandma up. Realize the time and go back to sleep.

8:30 am – my brother goes to pick up my grandma so Eric and I roll out of bed. My mom is in the kitchen making breakfast and I put coffee on. We all sit around the table visiting.

9:30 am – my dad arrives. We eat breakfast and visit some more!

10:30 am – time to open presents! My brother divies them out and we all take turns opening them. Eric and I got spoiled by both our families this year!

11:30 am – Done opening presents. My brother got the game ‘Apples to Apples’ so me, my mom, my grandma, my brother and Eric start playing!

12:00 pm – Eric goes out to his parents for Christmas lunch and my mom, brother, grandma and I play another game of Apples to Apples.

1:30 pm – my aunt and cousin come over and we all hang out and visit some more. All the while we are munching on copious amounts of goodies!

2:30 pm – cousin, aunt, grandma and brother go to my aunt’s house and it’s just me and my mom. We clean up and read.

3:30 pm – Eric is back. Him and my mom rent a movie and I go lay down for a nap.

5:30 pm – I wake up from my nap and their movie is just ending. We start getting ready to go to my aunts for Christmas dinner.

6:00 pm – leave for my aunts at the dinner, have to go back to the house twice; once because we forgot to put the dog in the kennel and the 2nd time because I forgot my mushroom gravy.

6:30 pm – arrive at my aunts for a delicious Christmas dinner. On my plate: soy turkey, veg stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts, mushroom gravy. My second vegetarian Christmas was a huge success!

7:30 pm – everyone is so full we can barely move! We start a game of Apples to Apples and then play a round of Clue. We eat pumpkin cheesecake with real whipping cream and some sugar pie at some point in there!

9:30 pm – leave to go back to my mom’s.

9:45 pm – Eric and I are both SO full we decide to go for a walk. It’s 1 C out and I wear capri’s on our walk.

10:30 pm – back from our nice long walk. My mom, brother and cousin are watching a movie. We sit down to watch with them and I start typing up this post.

12:00 am – Christmas Day 2011 is officially over and it’s time for bed!!

***

Christmas is pretty laid back and relaxing in my family. I didn’t even really change out of my PJ’s and that’s the norm for us. I like it that way

Questions of the day: How was your Christmas weekend? What would a “day in the life” look like for you on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?

Something Eric and I both hold near and dear to our hearts is our ALONE TIME!

Eric has been away for the last week and I’ve been chilling at the house by myself. It’s been a really lovely week actually. I was able to watch what I wanted when I wanted on TV (which wasn’t much, the TV wasn’t on nearly as much as it usually is) and the house is cleaner than it has been in a long time.

Alone time is something Eric and I both treasure a lot. I went away on two girls weekends this year leaving Eric alone for 4-5 days and he enjoyed that. It worked well for us because I like getting away with girlfriends and he enjoys having the house to himself. Win-win!

I see and know of lots of couples who spend ALL their time together. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just doesn’t work well with our personalities as we both need time to ourselves every once in awhile. Plus I figure it doesn’t hurt to be given the opportunity to miss someone

Even after we’re married I plan to regularly take girls weekends/trips away and I’m sure Eric would like to do the same. After enduring six week stretches apart during the year we were long distance five days to a week really feels like nothing

Questions of the day: Do you enjoy alone time? If you are in a relationship do you and your partner tend to take weekends/weeks apart or no?