1. Matters of Faith – Kristy Kiernan
2. Your Hear Belongs to Me – Dean Koontz
3. Plum Lucky – Janet Evanovich
4. Little Bee – Chris Cleave
5. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List – Rachel Cohn
6. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Rachel Cohn
7. Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story – Carolyn Turgeon
8. Outlander – Diana Gabaldon
9. Loving Frank – Nancy Horan
10. In Hanuman’s Hands – Cheeni Rao
11. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
12. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
13. Relentless – Dean Koontz
14. The Women – T.C. Boyle
15. Love or Something Like it – Deirdre Shaw
16. A Big Little Life – Dean Koontz
17. Say When – Elizabeth Berg
18. The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein
19. Full House – Janet Evanovich
20. Full Tilt – Janet Evanovich
21. Full Speed – Janet Evanovich
22. Full Blast – Janet Evanovich
23. Full Bloom – Janet Evanovich
24. Full Scoop – Janet Evanovich
25. Dragonfly in Amber – Diana Gabaldon
26. Breathless – Dean Koontz
27. The Girls from Ames – Jeffrey Zaslow
28. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
29. Through the Looking Glass – Lewiss Carroll

As far as a favorite I don’t think I could pick one… It was a good year for reading. I started the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon – they are long books 800-900 pages each… So far I am really enjoying the series but I try to squeeze a few small books in between each book…. I also REALLY love some of the dog books I read this year, The Art of Racing in the Rain and A Big Little Life are amazing and inspirational for anyone who has had a dog in their life… Also – I’m not as big of an Evanovich fan as it looks… I just can’t turn down books that are handed to me and I like to get them back to their owner ASAP. But her books really do make for some good light reading between some of the “heavier” books I’ve read this year.

Then on Jason’s actual birthday we went to two movies that Jason wanted to see. Invictus and Sherlock Holmes. Both movies were very good… Much better than I was expecting. Invictus was inspirational and moving. I HIGHLY recommend this movie… Jason felt they tried to just throw some stuff in there at times but I really really enjoyed it… Sherlock was good; entertaining and funny… it was a really great way to spend the day.

Let’s start off by saying I am notoriously not patient about gifts… giving or receiving.  Knowing this I had one of Jason’s bigger gifts sent to a friends house then I immediately wrapped it after I got it so I wouldn’t be tempted to give it to Jason early…. Jason also knowing this planned a gift for me that he gave to me early… I came home from a late night crop in the Quad Cities one night to find our house decorated with lights. I always admire decorated houses but Jason never seemed too interested, so it was a really special surprise that he took the time to go buy and put up lights on our house!

We also knew before Christmas that we might be having a solo Christmas… My parents are in Florida, Jason’s brother just moved to Texas… Our car doesn’t have many long journeys left in it… so a WI trip seemed like a waste, so we started looking forward to a low key Christmas at home… In fact by the 20th we still didn’t have the tree up.  Well it turned out that despite the threat of bad weather Jason’s mom would be able to join us, that was a nice surprise, and she made it down from WI on the 23rd.

My impatience with gift giving/receiving was really getting to me by the 23rd or sooner… So I pulled out the technicality that after the Christmas Vigil at church it is for all intents and purposes Christmas…. Even if we went to the earliest (5pm) service offered… So after Jason and I went to church on Christmas Eve we came home and had dinner, then drove around to see some Christmas lights, then came home to open presents.

Now the fun begins!  We decided to try to Skype with Aaron, Jason’s brother, so he could open presents with us and vice versa… So after the set up, which took way too long in my opinion we were set to go… Aaron sat on a chair across the room for us, which is ironic since Aaron doesn’t even have a chair in his new apartment yet… We took turns opening presents and had a great time.

So the loot: I got my christmas lights/decorations, awesome GPS for geocaching, some cash, some bread mixes, pancake mixes, Walden Farms products
Jason got: A Kindle, fog free shower mirror, a book, bread mixes, Walden Farm’s products, pancake mixes, Kindle reading stand, cash

Christmas Day was pretty low key, Jason made a turducken (Turkey, stuffed with duck, stuffed with chicken) since we had been interested in it since we heard about it on the food network one day… and we enjoyed rolls from Texas Roadhouse… It can’t get much better than that!

One of the great things was that almost all the booths had cards with their website, so if they didn’t have your size, or you ran low on cash and they didn’t take credit card… You could grab their card and go check out their website later… Here is a list of websites that I found grab worthy. There were plenty I didn’t grab, hopefully Rachel and Kirsten will share some of their links. All the shops have their websites listed in the program so some just didn’t grab or some only one of us grabbed…

Fernworks – Handpainted resin jewelry
Prix-Prix – Neckte wallets and more
Loop + Lil – Children’s t-shirts
Brainstorm – Awesome screenprints
Uncommon – Wooden clocks
Sofia Masri – Porcelain jewelry
Gnome Enterprises – Geeky t-shirts
We Are Campfire – Fun t-shirts, lots of regional ones
Paper Parasol Press –  Screenprinted cards, magnets and more
Herb + Ginger –  Awesome tasting tea
Circle Street – Cards
Get Felt Up! – Felt accented wallets, jewelry and more
Earth Cadets – Totebags, t-shirts and more
Starving Artist Bazaar – Glass jewelry
Seattle Show Posters – Screenprinted posters and more
Mehoi – Cute buttons, jewelry and more

Here are some pictures of the fun, there are more on my flickr page.

Here are some pictures of my loot from the weekend. The large reusable bag is from a store nearby and the t-shirts are from the Threadless store.

Highlights of the day:

• Stealing the pot…
• Eating so much “crack” I felt like a kid who ate all their halloween candy the next day…
• Laughing and talking…
• Representing IC with our loud mouths and willingness to cheer for those who win prizes even if they aren’t part of the “group”

Here are a few sneak peaks of my layouts, I will get the whole layout pictures up sometime soon…