Postcard Arrivals: Ukraine & Belarus

Brest, Belarus

4,886 miles in 21 days.

This post card is from 1984 of the USSR period.

Donetsk, Ukraine

5,525 miles in 15 days

Merry Christmas 2013

Can you believe that it's finally Christmas time?! This year has gone by so fast it seems, they always do anymore. 

Christmas Eve was spent at work, at least we got to go in early and leave early, because nothing is longer than the day before a holiday at work (unless you also consider going back to work after a holiday in there as well, both equally long)

OL was so excited to give me my present from her. She had a gift in particular that she was very excited to give. It was a deck of Sons of Anarchy playing cards! All our favorite characters on each card! Clay is the King, Gemma the queen, Jax the Ace and Opie the Jack. And of course, Wayne, Bobby, Juice, Tig, and Chibbs are in the deck too! What a FABULOUS present, thanks OL! ;) 

To ease the pain of working the day before Christmas it was unofficial Ugly Sweater day at work, here are a few of my cube mates in their holiday cheer!

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Christmas day was spent at my parents house. We had lots of fun! It's been our tradition the past couple years to have Christmas breakfast, this year we had yummy cinnamon rolls that were delish! A.drama made them in the bakery at her store. 

Christmas begins later and later each year, as you get older you cherish the days off from work and the extra sleep in time, we aren't 3 anymore and can wait to see what Santa has brought us. Everyone gathers around and we go around the room each person opens a present then on to the next, we like to enjoy our gift giving. Here are a few pictures from this year...

Mom, gma/gpa and as sophie puppy photobomb

Dad opening his present, which he thought was a stadium chair, turns out it was a laptop desk for your lap... silly dad. (and and Alex photobomb)

aww, aren't they cute. A.drama & Marvin

My new Christmas tradition- the Christmas shirt 2013

Sibling Christmas selfie

A.Drama and Marvin opening presents

I always manage to get a picture of NiBo eating candy

and a Christmas Oliver

(photo by NiBo)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year. I know I did! Tons of great presents, it's hard to choose a favorite! The rest of the day after we opened presents was spent watching movies and TV with the family. 

I can't believe that 2014 is just around the corner! Merry Christmas everyone!!

10 Things: Arizona Thoughts Pt. 1

{Part 1 because I'm sure there will be more}

Obviously moving to another state in just a couple months it is normal to have a million things about it running through your mind. I thought this would be a great place to share the random stream of consciousness thoughts about moving to Arizona that are running through my head, I'm sure there will be many many more of these 10 things as the months move on.

10 Things: Random thoughts about Arizona

* Crap, no longer have the excuse that "it's winter" for not shaving my legs.

* A coworker's reaction upon hearing the news "My first thought was maybe you won't be so white now" awesome.

* Everyone keeps saying I'll have to change the name of the blog.. well I'm not it will stay North of 10th, but I will need suggestions on a new tag line "stories dreams and random thoughts from the brick streets of a small town" won't work anymore.

* It's approximately 1700 miles (about 24 hours) from small town to Phoenix and we're driving out. Ultimate road trip or highway to hell?

* Things I'm so far most excited to check out once I'm there: Grand Canyon, Tombstone/OK Corral and Cubs spring training in Mesa! 

* I've been Googling Arizona facts too, here are some ones that stood out: 

     ~Arizona has 3,928 mountain peaks and summits—more mountains than any one of the other Mountain States (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming).

     ~ There are more wilderness areas in Arizona than in the entire Midwest. Arizona alone has 90 wilderness areas, while the Midwest has 50.+

    ~ Thirteen species of rattlesnakes live in Arizona, more species than in any other state.

* I'm interested to see what this "dry heat" feels like. In my mind hot is hot but people seem to think hot in AZ is different than hot in IL

* I love to wear my sunglasses. Sunglasses days make me happy (Winter time in IL does not give many sunglasses days) I've read on average Phoenix has 211 sunshine days... whoa.

* I'm worried about traffic and my patience level with it.

* I'm very excited that my birthday twin and his family are making the journey too! My favorite thing that Skinny said when he found out we both got the same job/city was a Mighty Ducks quote: "... And when the wind blows hard and the sky is black -Ducks fly together!" 

Postcard Arrival: Chongqing, China

This postcard traveled 7,543 miles in 46 days. 

That's the longest travel time so far.

This postcard is from Chongqing, China, and the sender says the city is known as "mountain city" and "foggy city" She also says that the famous food there is hot pot, which she says is very delicious and spicy.

Post Card Arrival: Leipzig, Germany

"All that I love loses half it's pleasure if you are not there to share it." 

- Clara Ortega

4,546 miles in 9 days.

The Big Announcement!

It's official folks, North of 10th is heading west! I'm moving to Arizona in March! I have accepted a new position with my company and will be moving to the Phoenix area in a couple months! The overall emotion is very excited, tons of new things, a HUGE bucket list item of living in another state will be crossed off and many more I'm sure. 

So stay tuned folks, 2014 is going to be amazing! I'll have lots of new things to share, it's sure to be an exciting ride! I hope you'll follow along with me as this huge adventure unfolds! 

Bah Humbug!

Work has been a giant headache this week. Something about the holiday's just brings out the impatience and meanness in people. But you know what makes everything better?! Cookies and eggnog in the atrium and a visit from Buddy the elf. Go ahead and try not to have a good day after that! 

Postcard Arrival: The Philippines

8,244 miles in 16 days from the Philippines.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Technically winter doesn't start until the 21st, but I don't think mother nature got that memo. Small town got dumped on with about 6 inches of snow! With nothing better to do, what better thing to do than make a snowman?!

So make a snowman we did...

We even dressed our snowman up in Navy gear to cheer Navy on vs. Army! 

Dad was happy.

Mom watched us build our snowman from the warmth of the front window, and don't ask my why she had full size carrots just sitting in the fridge, but I'm glad she did! 

Postcard Arrival: Regensburg, Germany

Traveling for 10 days and 4,622 miles this postcard arrived all the way from Germany.This sender has actually been through our great state of Illinois on a train trip to Minnesota, what a small world.

Santa Came to Town!

The Santa Train! 

 

Today was a special day in Small Town, Santa came to town! He came by rail to visit all the boys and girls in town. Every year the Santa Train makes it way to small town, it's an old passenger train all dressed up in the holiday spirit. I won't lie it felt a little bit weird to be there without a small child, but you're never too old for Santa right?!

The weather today was great, but cold. If felt like the train came straight from the North Pole and brought the weather with. I'm pretty sure the 'feels like' temp was a bit cooler than the 9 degrees that my car said as I left this morning. Dad wanted to come too, just to check out the fancy old train. Scheduled to arrive at 8 am it was a bit late and didn't get to town until about 8:30, that's when dad and I headed uptown to start our adventure. We ended up waiting about 2 hours. You are given a ticket and thankfully got to wait inside until they call your number.

Once your number is called you get to see Santa! You walk through the passenger car and everywhere you look there are decorations! 

Santa! Here's Santa and I sharing a laugh. 

After you get done chatting with Santa, you make your way through a few more passenger cars all the way up to the engine. When you got to the engine you got to blow the train's horn, (it's actually just a button you push) then after that you're on you're way.

Family Picture Day

Today we had family pictures taken, and we couldn't have asked for a better weather day. We were originally scheduled for last week but the temperature was about 12 degrees so we pushed it back a week and man I'm glad we did. 

Here are a few of the sneak peeks our photographer has shown us..

It's incredibly annoying that NiBo is incapable of taking a bad photo, he's pretty much like Barney on How I Met Your Mother. Even more annoying is the fact that he knows it too.

A Teenage Crush Gone

Paul Walker was one of my very first Eye Candy subjects on my blog. He was also my very first crush, like cut out every picture of him from my Bop magazine and taped them all to my wall. I fell in love with him in Meet the Deedles back in 1998.  Then again in Varsity Blues, and pretty much every movie he's ever been in.

Then tonight the breaking news was that Paul Walker, age 40, had passed away in car accident. My childhood crush has died, it's very very sad. 

I cannot believe that he is 40, that makes me feel old. I'm too young to lose my childhood crush! Just another reminder that life is short and can change in an instant. RIP Paul Walker :(

An Abbreviated Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was pretty far from traditional and slightly abbreviated. It started Wednesday night, when we got a call from NiBo that his car wouldn't start and he just replaced the starter (he's having one of those when it rains it pours moments with his car) so insert amazing sister and we have a sibling adventure on our hands. I drove down to the big town to assist. 

Our original plan was to get the battery out, with one forgotten tool, we were onto plan B, jump start. Minus one set of jumper cables and a run to Advance Auto Parts to purchase said jumper cables we were back in business? After popping the hood on my car (which has a cover for everything) we located the battery cover to reveal an awkwardly placed battery with no access to the negative cable. How can this be we asked ourselves, thank God for Google, and a quick video viewing we were back on track. With a red to red and black to black we had the cables in place, we let it sit for a few minutes, and with a turn of the key success!! We had errands to run and would be back.

Turns out we were no match for a completely dead battery, though we fought valiantly. We learned important lessons though and can now jump a battery like it's our job.

Which brings us to Thanksgiving itself, but I have to backtrack a few days first. Earlier in the week our poor dad who is never ever sick and does not miss work, caught a nasty case of the stomach flu and missed the three days of work we had this week, so we decided to move Thanksgiving to Sunday when we have a family photo scheduled. But who could expect all that food to wait, we had rolls from the Beef House just calling our name, so we ate those yesterday. And the turkey was basically all done, so we ate that today. We still have pies to enjoy tomorrow though, but the weather will be warmer so we decided to grill out instead. So there you have it, the story of how this years Thanksgiving because a slightly abbreviated and drawn out event! 

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and if you braved the stores yesterday I hope you found lots of savings! 

Postcard Arrival: Minsk, Belarus

This postcard traveled for 33 days and 4,923 miles all the way from Minsk, Belarus. This postcard is a picture of the palace in Pruzhany which is on the Western edge of Belarus. There were lots of stamps on this postcard too!