The best Christmas Present Ever...

So, the other night there were about seven cop cars right outside of our house for several hours complete with searchlights and everything. We peeked out the windows on and off for a while, but could never see enough to actually figure out what was going on...so we chalked it up to some kind of massive manhunt that was taking place. Slightly freaky, but Isaac was with me so I wasn't too worried.

Fastforward to the following afternoon.

I am in the kitchen preparing to bake some fantastic spicy ginger cookies for that evening's festivities and Isaac is in the back room, when we hear a knock at our door. A very loud knock. Now the thing about our house is that there are three doors to enter before you actually get into our apartment. We live in an old house, so there's the external door that leads down a very short hallway and ends with the door of our apartment and the door of the downstairs apartment. If you go through our door, it takes you up a set of stairs where you then reach the actual door into our apartment. Now, obviously the only people who know this are those who have been to our house before, so the majority of our knocks come from the door at the bottom of the stairs. Only people we know come straight to the top of the stairs, but that happens only if we know they're coming over, so they never knock, they just come right in. All that to say, something is not right if there is a loud knock coming from our top door. Isaac asked me to get it, but I was a tad alarmed being that there was a possible vagrant on the loose via last night's supposed manhunt. Not wanting to just open the door to a murderer without Isaac in the room as backup, I called out a friendly, "Who's there?" When no one answered, the churning in my stomach kicked it up a notch so I turned my gaze toward the back bedroom and called for Isaac to come. But before he came out the knock returned, even more fierce than before. I called out again, "Who's there?" and again, there was no answer. Something was definitely wrong because I was only about seven feet from the front door and there was no doubt that whoever was out there could hear me, but was refusing to answer until I opened the door. I called for Isaac again, and then eyed the deadbolt, about to run over and flip it locked, awkward as that may be since they would most assuredly hear the sound of the door locking loud and clear and would know I just locked them out. I heard the deep tones of a man's voice behind the door now and became even more panicked as I racked my brain to try to remember where we had put the phone so I could call the police if necessary. And still there was no sign of Isaac (probably because Isaac doesn't get scared of anything, so I'm sure it never even occured to him that the person at the front door was possibly waiting to shoot me at point blank range once I opened the door). Then, to my horror, I saw the front door starting to open and I knew he was coming inside. I thought my heart was going to beat straight out of my chest and the words, "Don't come in or I'm calling the police," were at the tip of my tongue...

...when two long lost faces peered around the door. It took my frazzled brain a couple seconds to register the intruders, but two seconds later I was screaming and crying as I recognized Morgan and Tommy!! THE Morgan and Tommy who have been gone since September gallivanting around the world and who weren't expected back until the end of March! I know I can't convey our excitement at seeing them, but they're two of our best friends and we have missed them so much since they've been gone. And we had absolutly no idea whatsoever that they were coming home for Christmas. They surprised everyone, even their parents! It turns out, they really had wanted me to open the door without knowing who was there so they could see my surprised face which is why they didn't want to identify themselves. Makes sense, just makes the situation a tad scarier when there are dangerous criminals on the loose. Anyway, I recovered and we got to spend an awesome evening with them...and they're here for three weeks!

As soon as we had calmed down (okay, as soon as I had calmed down) we drove over to Justin and Alex's to surprise them. Isaac and I hid behind the bushes and Tommy and Morgan rang the doorbell and waited. I wish I could have seen Lex's face because all I saw from my vantage point was smiles and waves from Mo and To, and then finally Morgan's exasperated beckoning for Alex to come open the door. Apparently she had just been standing inside staring at them in shock because she couldn't believe they were actually there. So awesome! And then we called Justin up from the basement, but like Isaac, he doesn't react with the drama of us lovely wives. Just a huge smile and hugs all around from him.

Just thinking about it all makes me tear up again. So we have three wonderful weeks to spend with our friends before they head back to Asia for the duration of their expedition. The best surprise ever.

PS, if you're interested in following their journey, you can read about it all here. And they have hundreds of awesome pictures from their travels.

The day we got married...

Better late than never. We've finally got some of our wedding pictures rifled through and relatively organized into a pseudo-chronological display.

Want to see them? Go here.

Do enjoy.

Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising by Jean Kilbourne.

So provocative. She found a way to put into words the things I've been feeling for the past decade.

A handful of wheatgrass...

We live in a rather tiny apartment. One bedroom, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Which means no storage place. At all. No extra closets, no garage, nothing. So for the first year of our marriage, the home for all of Isaac's tools was a gigantic pile on the floor against the far wall of our bedroom. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining because we LOVE our little house, but I was also very thankful when Isaac's next project created a home for all of those tools. He got the idea to incorporate old milk crates as shelves and started the hunt for a broken down cupboard he could restore to fit the crates. A few days later, his project was born. He had to extend the back of the cupboard and fix it up quite a bit as it was a sorry piece of junk to being with. Then he covered all that work with lots of sanding, paint, and varnish, fit the milk crates in and - whallah, we have a mini tool shed. It's beautiful and matches the other cupboards he did earlier this year. And best of all, we have our far wall back.

And then there's his dream (our dream, really) of living in a place where plants rule the roost. Where everywhere you look inside, there are dozens of species of plants living among us. We have tons of plants in pots, but this time Isaac wanted to fully incorporate the greenery into the piece of furniture. So he purchased some old drawers from a torn down elementary school, fixed them up (of course), and then created waterproof indents in the top to house whatever it was we wanted to grow - wheatgrass at the moment.

Next, I want a new bed. He's been drawing up designs on and off for the past year for it, but weather, space, and lack-of-garage-sized-tools has put that little dream off for possibly a couple more years. Until then...