Holiday Happiness

I have been full of happiness and smiles the last couple of days. First, by your overwhelming support of my decision to pursue yoga teacher training. Second, I’ve been surrounded by amazing friends that I don’t see often. And third, I wrapped up work today and have almost a whole week off for Christmas! Hooray for vacation!

The tea tag on my Yogi Green Tea Kombucha (best tea EVER) the day that I wrote my “Decided” post. Could it have been more perfect?

I was so lucky to have my very best college friends in town last night. I mentioned this a few days ago but my friend Meghan and her fiance Josh are in town to spend Christmas with her family. Our other friends Michelle, Ryan and Audrey came up from Atlanta for a night so that we could all spend time together. We all live in different cities now and it’s not often that we are all in the same place at the same time.

Meghan, Michelle, Audrey and I were all in the same sorority at Georgia and Meghan, Michelle and I all ended up dating guys in the same fraternity (hang with me, going way back here). All of the couples ended up staying together after college and Meghan and Josh are now the final two to get married (even though they were the first to start dating freshman year!).

We decided to have a low-key night and have dinner at our house so that we could all spend time catching up. I decided to stick with an old favorite and went with the salad + chili + beer bread combo again. It’s just perfect for entertaining on a cold night and I was able to do most everything before our everyone arrived, allowing me to have fun. 🙂

Salad provided by Meghan.

White chicken chili – Michelle kindly allowed me to photograph her bowl since she arranged her toppings so beautifully!

Veggie bean chili (my plate).

Crowd pleasing beer bread.

And I couldn’t help myself. I made the Eggnog Cheesecake Bars again. Also a big hit!

Brandon and I are so lucky to have these amazing people in our lives. I can’t believe that we’ve all been friends for almost 10 years now! I know that we have many years of fun memories ahead of us too. Case in point, last night we discussed a group Caribbean vacation sometime next year. Yes, please.

One of the other highlights of my week (there have been so many!) was accompanying Meghan on her dress hunting excursion. When I walked into the bridal boutique she was in what would end up being her gown. I almost burst into tears on the spot. She is going to be a beautiful bride and I am so happy I could be there when she found the dress.

Meghan’s mom and sister laughed at us because we unknowingly dressed alike. 😉

Today was busy, busy with client meetings and trying to get everything wrapped up before vacation. I picked up bagels for our houseguests at Panera this morning and ate a cranberry walnut bagel with light cream cheese in the car on the way to a meeting. I broke for a late lunch to meet everyone for lunch before the Atlanta crew hit the road.

We ate at Brixx. I wasn’t really feeling pizza so I ordered the Grilled Mushroom Wrap with fruit. It was awesome – I loved the actual wrap. It was homemade from their pizza dough.

Dinner tonight was leftover veggie bean chili after a hot vinyasa yoga class. I have been stressed tonight trying to finalize the Christmas Eve/Day menu with my dad. I look at recipes for hours and have a hard time committing. I think I’ve finally settled on my dishes. I’m really looking forward to all of the Christmas cooking with my dad!

One last thing – I had a moment of clarity yesterday and realized that I needed a hair cut. Immediately. I called my salon in a state of desperation and luckily they had a cancellation tomorrow. I think I’m feeling a change. My hair has gotten really long and I’m kind of over it. Nothing too drastic…suggestions?

Looking forward to my day off tomorrow! I have a ton to accomplish before we hit the road to Georgia on Friday morning.