Post-Christmas and New Years Eve

Russ and I packed up the car the Sunday after Christmas and headed back to Memphis. The kids stayed with Granna again this year for the week since they were out of school. I wish I had taken a picture of our car loaded down...it was packed FULL. But we got it all in, including Caroline's dollhouse and dress up box. We even stuffed the rooftop bag full, too, and left the kids car seats behind for Granna to bring up when we meet to pickup the kids. It was crazy! But we made it home, unloaded and starting unpacking.

Russ headed to work that Monday while I was off for the entire week! Hooray! I have come to really look forward to this week of the year to get things done around the house and take advantage of no kids and more date nights. Russ is not as enthusiastic about being away from the kids for this long and really misses them. It's not that I don't, but I love the accomplished feeling I get after a productive week off. 

Speaking of being productive, I had quite the to-do list for the house. There were some other errands and such added to the list, but these were my main goals this week. There was defintely no resting for the weary on "vacation".

1. Unpack from trip to Clarksville and put away gifts
2. Clean out and organize the playroom
3. Clean out and organize our master bathroom closets and cabinet
4. Purge and organize my closet
5. Put away Christmas

I LOVE breaking out the label maker!

The finished dress-up box with all of our clothes and accessories from home added.

We did pack in some fun, too. Russ and I got caught up on our DVR at night and we also started watching Prison Break from the beginning on Netflix, which we are really enjoying. It has (80), 45 minute episodes in its 4 seasons so we will be watching this for a good while. 

We also decided to make the drive to Birmingham and join friends to watch our Memphis Tigers football team play the Auburn Tigers in the Birmingham Bowl on Wednesday. Birmingham is a quick 4 hour drive and I had hotel points for a free stay, so it was a no brainer. to drive down after Russ got off work on Tuesday. Most of our friends that went took kids, but I was thankful that we were kid-free. Especially since it was cold and rainy game day. We bundled up in our ponchos and headed to the game anyway. Our tailgating was short lived because the traffic going into the stadium was completely insane!! It took us over an hour to go only 4 miles from our hotel. The game was a letdown to a fun season, as we did not show up to play. We got a beat down by Auburn and lost. We left a little early to try and beat some of the traffic out and I'm so glad we did! We made it home in record time and went straight to the movies to see the new Star Wars movie. It was really good and did not disappoint. It was a fun getaway despite the rain and loss.

Russ worked on New Years Eve (Thursday) and I continued to work on my purge and organizing projects by starting with my closet! Oi vey, the mess! That night, we met the Peregoys for dinner at Alchemy. They had a prix fixe menu for NYE and it did not disappoint! Afterwards, I booked us all to play Paradux at the Memphis Escape Rooms. It was Jennifer and Jarmon's first time to play an escape game and Russ and I wanted vindication from not escaping the last time we played. Since there were only 4 of us, they added 3 more people to our group to fill the room. Those 3 were not super helpful, but we did manage to ESCAPE this time! I'm not gonna lie...it was a super challenging room. At times I don't feel like I helped all that much, but it was a team effort!

Taking a few pics before the game.

The whole group

We ESCAPED!

We went back to our house after our game-winning high and popped open some champagne. turned on Dick Clark's New Years Rocking Eve and played Cards Against Humanity. There was some celebratory shots that were taken, too. I was so tired, I ended up FALLING ASLEEP around 1:15a on our couch while our guests were still there! How embarrassing! It was all the endless purging that wiped me out. We still had the best night with the Peregoys! We are so grateful for them!

So thankful for these 2 people in my life! 

Shenanigans! I was about the pass out from exhaustion about this time.

Since we were still kid-free on New Years Day, we got to sleep in for the 2nd year in a row! It was amazing! We watched the Rose Parade on HGTV followed by a lot of shows about the new tiny house craze (Russ is amazed and a little obsessed with the concept) before we were slightly more productive later that afternoon.

We have high hopes for 2016 to be an amazing year. We were kinda ready to put 2015 to bed since it was filled with quite a bit of unplanned drama. Here's hoping that 2016 is at least turkey and bone-breaking free...though I am sure there will be lots of new surprises that the year will bring!