Pop on over to Blair's blog to sign up for her favorite things swap! It sounds so fun!

Vegas, baby!

So, we went to Vegas! We decided to go and planned the whole thing very sporadically (which is quite unlike us), so we were extra excited about it. We knew we wanted to take a short vacation by ourselves, and Vegas had been on David's "must see" list for awhile.

We got a great deal on our flights and hotel, but we wanted to be sure we were getting the best bang for our buck on the rest of the trip. We're pretty cheap frugal people in general, so we tried to think of ways to maximize our vacation. We wanted to see Vegas, but neither of us are big drinkers or gamblers. In fact, we didn't drink any alcohol or spend any money gambling (we did each get free coupons for slot play, so we used those). We didn't intend to do this, but in the end that definitely saved us some moolah!

Rather than spending our money on food and drinks, wanted to see and do cool stuff. SO, we did! We bought Power Passes, which turned out to be worth the money! It ended up saving us more than $115 and enabled us to:

• go to observation deck of The Eiffel Tower at Paris
• go to the top of the Stratosphere
• visit Madame Toussads Wax Musuem
• take a day tour of the Hoover Dam & Lake Mead
• ride the NYNY Manhattan Express Roller Coaster
• spend $20/day at Planet Hollywood (which were our lunches on Monday & Tuesday)

We also bought gift certificates from restaurant.com with an 80% off coupon, so our other lunch was really inexpensive too.

We also saw some great shows:

• America's Got Talent LIVE (the top 7? acts from last season's show)
• Blue Man Group (David has seen them in NY, Cincinnati and Vegas now!)
• KA (the tickets came with our hotel package)

We bought our tickets to America's Got Talent and Blue Man Group the day of the shows at one of the Tix4Tonight places. That saved us tons of money!

After reviewing our trip, we decided a few things. First, we're glad we went, but not ready to go back. I can definitively cross Vegas off my list of places to go. Second, our second favorite activity was seeing the Hoover Dam. It was the educational part of our trip and SO worth it! Lastly, our very favorite thing in Vegas was KA- the Cirque du Soleil show. Oh. my. word. It would be worth going back to Vegas just for that show. Unfortunately, we saw it at 9:30pm (which was 12:30am to our bodies) so we were sleepy through the whole thing.

Overall, the best part of the trip was just spending time with David. We hadn't been on a vacation by ourselves since our honeymoon, and it was so fun to get away! We made some great memories and loved being together.

You know you married a good man when...

... you are watching the Bachelor (which is noteworthy in istelf ) and the host Chris Harrison brings out the first impression rose on a silver platter. Your husband immediately asks, "Is that Wilton Armetale?"

Where to even begin??

I have kind of jumped around on the ol' blog recently, so let me back up... to Christmas!

We had a fabulous break (11 1/2 days!!!) spent in Columbus, Las Vegas and Chattanooga. We surprised my parents in Columbus by showing up a day earlier than they expected. We had planned all along to try to make that work, but we didn't want to get their hopes up. They were both freakishly surprised and excited to see us! (quick story: When we got to the house, Dad and Ashley weren't at home. I was a tad bummed because I realized the surprise would be spoiled as soon as they got to the driveway. However, apparently they got to the house and saw our car and Dad said "hmm... I wonder who is here. They have an Alabama license plate... it must be Ansley." Which is ridiculous because a) We have an Ohio license plate and b) Ansley has a Georgia one. Regardless, he walked in the house and freaked out when he saw us!)

We ate Mexican for dinner and went into vaycay mode posthaste. We spent the next four days in pure holiday bliss.

The best part about Christmas with my family is the amount of time it takes us to open gifts. I may have mentioned before that David has helped us enforce a spending budget per family member, but somehow the number of gifts continues to grow each year! When we were growing up, we spent Christmas at my grandparents' house and it was mayhem. There were kids tearing into gifts left and right, and no one ever saw each other's loot. Now that we celebrate in Columbus, we've adopted the way my mom grew up opening gifts. We open our stockings together (slowly still), but then we go one at a time- oldest to youngest. This year it took us 3.5 hours to open presents! We all revel in each other's goodies, and it makes the day so much more meaningful.  My mom is the youngest of six, so it must have taken much longer in her family!

We all got way too much stuff (as usual), but I think this is the first year that everyone genuinely appreciated all of their gifts! Almost all of us used Amazon wishlists, which helped immensely.

Here are some gift highlights:

David-

• the game Pit
• an awesome OSU colored blanket, handmade by mom
• 4 Ohio State lappers
• a grill tray
• Tervis Tumblers

Emily-

• this purse (in Hope Garden)
• a personalized cake plate (I had this one on my wish list, but my creative brother bought a plain white one and painted it! It has a "G" on the middle!)
• leather gloves
• slippers
• a label maker (!!)

We also each got a really special homemade gift from my dad. He made this fun little Ohio State dog house for D (with Harley's birthday and even the spot on his back) and cards with a picture of our house (that he drew!)  for me! They are SO special!

The Bryants also gave us a fabulous gift, this piece of the Dept. 56 North Pole Series!! They started our Christmas Village, and we are so excited about it. While doing some day-after-Christmas shopping, we stumbled upon a store that had them 50% off, so we got 2 more pieces for next year!

Unfortunately, Ashley had to leave Friday evening to go into work, but not before we made this macaroni (the consensus voted that it was more trouble- and money- than it was worth) and rode her new scooter!

Another highlight of our time in Columbus (other than sleeping in, playing with the sweetest puppies, eating my weight in food, not showering, reading lots, hanging out with the Getkin clan and card-planning with Mom) was visiting the new National Infantry Museum with Dad and Greg. It was really awesome, and it was especially fun to go with my dad who can tell us tons of additional details about just about everything.

Overall,  we had an awesome Christmas. We left Columbus Sunday to head to our vacation in Las Vegas! Another post to come...

For pictures from our entire Christmas vacation, check out the facebook album.

the best in-laws

Beth, Jayme and Brianna stayed with us Saturday on their way back to Ohio from Sanibel. We were together a short amount of time, but we had lots of fun!

We had tons of fun playing Rock Band together! Of course, Brianna wanted to be in on the fun too, so we told her to sing whatever song she wanted while David & Jayme actually played the game.

Brianna wanted to type a letter to Grammy Rae and listen to Hannah Montana songs... this girl cracks me up!

... sorry some of these are sideways! I cannot figure out a simple way to rotate them. Any suggestions are welcome!

Happy New Year from the Bryants and Geyers!

Oh, and go Buckeyes!

pass or fail?

In planning our goals for 2009, David suggested that we each read 12 books. Now, we have quite a discrepancy about how that goal-setting session actually went down, but David doesn't blog, so you get my version of the story :).

But seriously, he suggested it.

The thing is, David hates reading. I love reading.

Growing up, I read constantly. I had all of the ingredients of my conditioner memorized because I read the bottle every day. I had a book with me at all times so I would never be without something to read.

So, needless to say, I was thrilled that he wanted to beef up his reading time.

Now we're at the end of the year, and here are the totals.
drumroll please....

Emily= 32 books
David= 1.3ish books

However, (and this is a direct quote from David Geyer) when you get married, you are no longer an "I", you are a "team". Thus, our team goal was to read 24 books, and we have surpassed our goal by 4.3ish.

So there you go, we pass.

(I usually don't keep track of the books I read, but because it was one of our goals, I did this year. In case you were curious, here they are:)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , J.K. Rowling
Chasing Fireflies, Charles Martin
The Dead Don't Dance, Charles Martin
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Francis Chan
Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together, Ron Hall and Denver Moore
Belly Laughs, Jenny McCarthy
Baby Laughs, Jenny McCarthy
Feminine Appeal, Carolyn Mahaney
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Elizabeth Gilbert
Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel, Rebecca Wells
The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
The Magicians Nephew, C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Fireflies in December, Jennifer Erin Valent
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
The Mermaid Chair, Sue Monk Kidd
Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch
Sister of My Heart: A Novel, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Three Weeks with my Brother, Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks
So, You Want To Be Like Christ?: Eight Essentials to Get You There, Charles R. Swindoll
The Christmas Box, Richard Paul Evans
Where the River Ends, Charles Martin
At First Sight, Nicholas Sparks

(11,211 pages total)