Movie Reviews

Over the holidays Dan & I watched so many movies. Since I usually post my comments & reviews afterwards, I decided to do them all at once. Here you go...

Love & Other Drugs: Dan & I saw this in the theater the weekend that it came out & it was a good movie. The story was good, but just an FYI, there is ALOT of nudity & sexual content. Dan loved it because of Anne Hathaway & I loved it because of Jake Gyllenhaal...win! Win!

The Town: Dan & I bought this movie for Ben for Christmas; he had never seen it but wanted to. We ended up watching it on Christmas night & it was a good movie; I really liked it. There was a lot of action & swearing but it was one of those movies where you were rooting for the bad guy to make it. The only other movie I have done that with is Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. I thought Ben Affleck did a great job in The Town. *Highly recommended.

Eclipse: My brother had asked me to bring Eclipse up for our Christmas visit because he hadn't seen it yet & instead of Ben watching it with me, my Mom & Dad did. :o) They thought it was a cute movie but they don't really see what the big deal is with the whole Twilight thing. They did see the first 2 with Ben so they knew what was going on. I just love the books & the movies.

Legend of the Guardians: I had never heard of this movie until my brother told me about it. Apparently he had wanted to see it in the theater because it was in 3D but never actually got to watch it. While we were at my parents house for Christmas, we rented it & watched it the morning before Dan & I left to come back home. There were some cute parts in it but I thought the concept was pretty out there. Ben enjoyed it & that's all that really matters.

The Fighter: This was one of Dan's picks & I was not too thrilled about seeing it but I went because there are times when I drag him to the theater & he's not too thrilled about my picks. I actually really enjoyed this movie & Dan absolutely loved it. Any time he is sitting on the edge of his seat with his hands up to his face, he's into it. The story was great & Christian Bale really did an amazing job with his character. *Highly recommended.

The A-Team: We decided to watch this movie on New Year's Eve because there was nothing else on & we were bored. It was actually entertaining & I absolutely love Liam Neeson so when I found out that he was in this movie, I was ready to watch it. We didn't love it & we didn't hate it.

Happy movie watching!

More Seating, Please

Dan & I have a new addition to our living room, an accent chair! I have been wanting one of these since we bought our living room furniture just before we moved into our townhouse. Unfortunately, our townhouse is pretty small so in order to fit a chair like this in, we had to move some things around. Our first furniture shopping stop was at Ashley Furniture where I found a few chairs that I somewhat liked & could make work in our house but nothing that I just had to have. We then went over to Value City Furniture & just as we were walking out the door, not finding anything that we liked, I spotted this chair: Dan instantly commented, "you like this one?" I gave him a look like you gotta be nuts, yes I love this one! Once I saw the back of the chair it made me love it even more: We had initially wanted a chair with an ottoman because I just love them, but after I saw this chair that idea went right out the window. Before we decided to purchase, Dan & I wanted to take a look at Roomstore's furniture just in case they had something that we liked better; of course they didn't so we went back to Value City & purchased. This past Wednesday was when we picked it up & brought it home. As we were opening the box, Dan had said, "holy crap! This thing grew twice its size!" It looked so much bigger once we got it into the house but, nonetheless, it still fit in its spot. I had been thinking in the back of my mind that we could possibly buy an ottoman if we wanted to but there is no way we have room for it now.

On Thursday night on my way home from work, I called Dan on the house phone & he had answered the phone slightly annoyed. I asked him what was wrong & he said, "nothing I'm just yelling at Winker." I asked him why & he said, "because she keeps getting up on the new chair." I'm not sure why this bothered him because #1 she is a house dog; #2 she never eats any of her food/treats on the furniture; #3 she doesn't shed; #4 she has never chewed furniture; and #5 our couches are still in great shape. When I got home, she greated me at the front door & then jumped up on the chair: She loves it. After dinner we were sitting around watching TV & Dan commented, "Wow babe, that chair really looks good with all of our stuff; I didn't think it would but it does." :o)

End Of Year Dinner

Like I said in my Perks post at the end of December 2010, The DLF had our end of year dinner on Thursday, December 30th. We had closed the office at 4:45 p.m. so we could leave a few minutes early & just a little after 5:00 p.m., we walked out of our building to a large, black stretch Hummer limo that greeted us: I took this pic with my cell phone, that's Nancy walking in front of me.
We also had the limo driver take a pic of us before we got in: Our office. :o)
Here is all of us inside "sippin' on champagne": The funny part about this photo is just before this was taken, Peter (the attorney sitting beside me) was opening a bottle of champagne & even though he warned everyone that he was opening it, as soon as I heard that loud cork popping sound, I jumped right out of my seat & my champagne goes flying out of my glass! It went all over my right pant leg, all over my purse & all over Cami's jacket. Everyone was laughing, including me, but afterwards I just felt horrible & sticky. I can't believe it scared me that much.
Left to right: David, Nancy, Anne, Alanna, Sandra Lue, Katie, Leesie, Cami, Me, Peter & Adam.
On our way to dinner, no one would tell us where we were going because it was a surprise. We finally realized that we were headed into Georgetown & we pulled up to 1789. We were able to take some photos inside the restaurant before we were seated at our table:
Just the girls.
The attorneys.
Here are the photos that were taken throughout the night with my camera:

After our amazing dinner & dessert, we all got back in the limo & took a drive around D.C. to see the white house, the Christmas tree, etc. We arrived back at the office around 10:15 p.m. Dan had drove me to work that morning so I wouldn't have to drive home & he picked me up when we got back. As soon as I got home, I went upstairs & went to bed. I had such a great time & I'm so thankful to have a job that I enjoy going to each day & working with such wonderful people.

Happy New Year everyone!

Our Christmas Card

Every year Dan & I send out a Christmas card to friends/family. This year we were delayed in getting them out due to other things going on but we were finally able to take our picture one night after work. We had wanted to take our Christmas photo outside since every year we take it in our house, but that didn't work out this year so we are hoping to do that next year. We all got ready & because I wasn't able to get Lexi's haircut before our photo, I decided to add a bow to her ponytail. She's gotta be festive too!

So we set up the camera & I got the timer ready & we tried a few poses. Here's pose #1: This would have been our picture but there was a glare.
Pose #2: Dan wanted to hold Lexi. Usually the snap works when trying to get Lexi to pay attention, this time it did not.
Distractions, distractions.
Pose #3: Lexi looks scary in this one.
So sweet.
We were getting desperate & tired of smiling so I decided to prop one of her toys up next to the camera & her eyes were glued for 6 full frames... Season's Greetings!

Christmas

Dan, Lexi & I were in PA for Christmas with my family. My office was closed on Christmas Eve so we left our house at 9:00 a.m. & drove up there. We got there around 2:00 p.m. & Mom was already baking/cooking; the entire house smelled so good. :o) Once we got settled in, I helped Mom in the kitchen with the Christmas cookies that we make every year. Dan even got into the spirit & decorated with me:

Of course he thought his decorations were better than mine, but they weren't. ;o)
Mom & Dad.
Dad & I.
On Christmas morning we got to sleep in & didn't actually get up until 9:00 a.m. Before we opened presents, my Mom had me distract my Dad with a dog walk because she had bought him a recliner for Christmas & wanted to get it set up in the living room before we all went in to open our presents. While Dad, Emma, Lexi & I went for a walk, my Mom & Dan carried the chair down & set it up. When we got back, he finally got to see it: He was so excited; he's been wanting one for years. My parents then wanted Dan to open his big gift: Which was a lawnmower: Since we have lived in our townhouse, we have either borrowed a lawnmower from the high school on the weekends or borrowed our neighbor's to cut our backyard. Now we no longer have to do that! Dan was very excited. We all then started opening our gifts & here's what we got:

Dan: tool box; power screwdriver, movies, clothes, new athletic watch (from me) & 2 new jackets (1 dress down jacket & one dress jacket): This is the one that I got him; it was a little too small so we had to exchange it when we got back to VA.

Me: new set of pots & pans (Rachael Ray); new canisters for our kitchen; Banana Republic sweater (from Dan); earrings & fleece (from my brother); picture frames; & Ugg boots (from Dan).

My parents got Ben a brand new entertainment center & a new flat screen TV for Christmas. After everyone was done opening their presents, we took him into his room where it was just partially set up, without his knowning:
The bad thing about this Christmas was that several things started to go wrong. As soon as I opened our new canisters, things went down hill. My Mom & I were trying to get the styrofoam out of the way so we could take a closer look at the canisters & as I was pulling one out, I broke off the handle on one of the lids. :o( I felt terrible because I saw the look on my Mom's face & she was devastated. Thankfully, it was a clean break & my Dad was able to super glue it & it was good as new. Whew! The luck kept continuing, as my Mom handed Dan the dress jacket from me, she said, "here you go Dano, open your jacket." She instantly covered her mouth & her eyes got real wide. Everyone got quiet & Dan said, "it's OK, I knew I was getting a jacket." We all started laughing. After breakfast, my Mom started to put the turkey in the oven but it was unable to fit due to the pot that it was in & the fact that the ham had to cook in there with it. We had to jerry rig a cheap aluminum container & even though it worked, the turkey took forever to cook & by the time we were ready to eat our dinner, it was no where near ready. We ate just the ham instead. It was very frustrating for my Mom because her Christmas dinner didn't turn out the way she wanted. We all thought it was a great dinner though, even without the turkey. Here's a pic I took of Mom in her cute apron doing her thing in the kitchen: To continue with our luck of the day, while I was setting the table for Christmas dinner, I dropped one of my Mom's white, tall candles that she has had for years & only puts out at Christmas; of course it broke in half & I had to tell her what happened. My Mom had planned to make more cinnamon buns that evening but since everything seemed to be going wrong, she decided to postpone it & make them in the morning; she had a feeling that they would turn out horribly just because of the way the day was going. Now of course, these aren't terrible things, they're just annoying & like my Dad said, "if this is all that goes wrong for us today, we are pretty damn lucky." Here are a few more pics I took before we opened our presents: Dan & Ben
Us (I love this one of Dan). After Christmas dinner, we decided to take a few family photos. Here are the ones that were taken with my camera: "The kids."
With Mom.
With Dad.
Our family of 3 (I love that Dan is holding Lexi's paw).
We later figured out how my Mom's camera timer works & we took our entire family photo with hers. I still need to get a copy of those pics.

We had a wonderful Christmas & were so grateful to spend it in PA; even though my Mom put an extra 10 lbs. on us from all of the food that she made. I have never eaten that much in 4 days, ever. We hope all of you had a Merry Christmas. :o)