Holy Bologna...I'm Way Behind!

i have to appologize for being so far behind on this bloggorina! there have been just waaaay too many exciting things going on in our little world to stop and take the time to share (or send christmas cards...sorry!).

it all started with the christmas festivities in early december. one of my favorite parties was the smith&nephew research and development office party at the brooks art museaum. they did it up all classy-like for us :) we had a team building activity that was just hilarious. i'm really competitive when it comes to these...and if you're not on my team you'd better step back! last year we had an awesome gingerbread house that only came in 2nd place because someone who spread frosting no the wall claiming it was the grinch staring down on their gingerbread village was considered more "creative". i say it was rigged. anywho...this year's challenge was to turn one of our team members into a christmas character and present it to everyone. because i was so ready to go all-out for this project, I got nominated to be our rudolph the research intern. we had a theme song, sleigh and everything! here are a few pictures that will show you how awesome we were :) and, by the way...we got first place!

that last picture cracks me up! especially the look on my manager's face!! he's the one dressed up as what looks like a pregnant grinch with a fuzzy green beard :)

tons of other fun stuff took place in the following weeks before christmas including having our good buddy jason stay with us (since his company still needed him in memphis, even though they'd moved him to pennsylvania), a christmas party with our new church friends, a dinner date with trish at the yummy korean place, a christmas get-together with the girls bible study at lea's beautifully remodeled home, and then went to my folks house in decatur to drop off tilly and visit with casey and sara before we left for our next great adventure...christmas in kuwait!

we left for kuwait the evening of dec 21st and arrived about midnight the next day. it was a crazy-long trip, but it'd made it better to be traveling with my MOH, katy :) i don't think any of us slept more than an hour each...not sure if it was the excitement of the trip, the rowdy kids behind us (right, katy?), or all the fun movies to watch on our personal tv screens...needless to say, we were one pooped group when we finally got to the kuwait airport. we had no idea what to expect when we got there, but we found to the kuwaities very friendly, helpful, and proud to have us visiting their country. leaving baggage claim and customs, we were thrilled to see daddy-o steve and mamma jeannie's smiling faces and their big sign for the "Ali" family :)

i don't even know where to begin with telling all about our trip, but it's probably best explained with pictures. a few things you'll see are our trip to the aranian fund building (very impressive what oil money can buy!), the kuwait towers, christmas with our new (fully armed) marine friends, 4-wheeling in the desert, a trip to falakah island, and shopping in various markets and souks. it was a blast. my favorite part was definitely the people. i just thought they were beautfiul and so interesting to talk to.

it was quite the adventure, as you can imagine. i'll share better stories in future blogs, but i just wanted everyone to get a glimpse as to what our trip was like. by the way....this last picture is just incase you've ever wondered what an arab buckle up for safety sign looked like :) hope everyone had a merry christmas!