Dear Santa: We're ready for you

Scoop and I got the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving. (After I went out to cover the Black Friday story at 4 a.m. and we took a long nap.) But what's more exciting is that, this year, for the first time, Chris put up Christmas lights! Since he was in junior high he's been in charge of hanging the lights at his parents' house. But we haven't been able to hang lights since we moved to Reno because our apartment didn't have any outlets out on the balcony. We had to wait a couple weeks to hang lights this year until we could borrow a ladder high enough to reach the top of our house.
Finally, we got it on Sunday, and I supervised while Chris climbed the ladder.
Here's the front of the house. I think next year we'll add more above the garage, too.

And here are the lights over the back patio.

And a late addition to the decorations last night, Scoop helped with the garland for the banister.

We're having fun decorating the new house and we're excited for our Christmas visitors to arrive next week!

Feel free to call me Master

It's been a whirlwind few days here with my parents and sister visiting and graduation festivities. We were so spoiled to have them here helping us cook and clean for the party, and it was such a nice treat to all be together.

Friday afternoon the journalism school had a reception for undergrad and graduate students who were graduating. Here are the girls in my cohort with our graduate adviser.

The Family - Mena, Chris, Me, Dad, Deb, Mom

Since Chris had to go to Vegas for work on Saturday, we had a party on Friday night. Here again are the girls in my cohort - Whitney, Ana, Me, Carlie, Heather and Megan

Na, Me, Julie and Erin

Graduation was on Saturday morning. Julie was shooting the ceremony for the paper, so she got some pictures for me - thank goodness because everyone else was sitting pretty far away.

The Cohort

It really was a fun weekend and I just have one assignment left to finish and I'm all done! My Dad and Deb left yesterday and my sister left this morning. We had such a nice time visiting with them and wish we could all be together more often.

Tomorrow morning I start a new job doing social media. I'm really excited about a new challenge, but a little nervous, too, for my first non-newspaper job in many years. Wish me luck!

A little of this, a little of that

Over the weekend, we had our first snow. Not quite the "epic" storm that was forecasted, thank goodness, but enough for Scoop to sniff around in for a little bit Sunday morning. Most of it melted by the end of Sunday, which I was glad for because I had to drive to school bright and early Monday morning to prepare for my defense. (Unfortunately, Quincy was hit way harder than Reno was and my Mom wasn't able to make the drive to come to the defense). Chris came for my defense, and it was easier than I imagined (I tend to get really nervous speaking in front of people - especially people who decide whether or not I've earned my master's) and my committee all thought I'd done a good job and signed all the necessary paperwork. What a relief! Chris took me out to a big Mediterranean lunch to celebrate. Now, I just have to write one more paper and take a final and I'm all done! It snowed some more yesterday, and overnight our low was 5 degrees, but it warmed to about 11 by the time Scoop and I got up. Time to get out the boots and gloves!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Indie Reno

On Saturday, my craft group held our first craft fair, Indie Reno. I had never done a real craft fair before and wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't have as much inventory as some of the other tables (I've been a little busy preparing for my master's defense) but I still exceeded my sales goals, and it was fun. A lot of my people I knew came by, and Na stayed to help me all day, and she and Erin both helped out with giftwrapping (we offered giftwrapping and hot cocoa for free). I'm pretty sure I have the best friends ever.

Here is my table. The light in the window behind made it hard to get a good picture.

We also gave swag bags to the first 25 people who walked in the door.
People actually were lined up outside before we opened!

I'm looking forward to our next show, sometime in the spring!

Fantasies in Chocolate

Last year, I volunteered at the annual fundraiser for the RGJ Foundation, Fantasies in Chocolate, and thought it would be fun to go, uh, for fun. Then Julie told us she and John were going to go for her birthday, so that was the perfect excuse for all of us to go.

Erin, Na, Me and Julie

John, Chris and Sandor

Team Gabel

We had lots of chocolate, wine and some savory food as well, even barbecued pulled pork with chocolate sauce and chocolate-covered bacon! It's always fun (for the girls at least) to get dressed up, and we all had a good time.

Movember

Chris shaved! He's growing a mustache for Movember, to raise money for prostate cancer research and to raise awareness. He's actually also growing a beard, despite my attempts to persuade him to just do the mustache. I mean, it's only for one month, right? I'm still holding out hope he'll shave down to just a mustache on the last day - at least long enough to let me take a picture. In the meantime, I'll be taking a picture of the progress daily. Here are days 1, 3, 4 and 5. (Day two was election day and Chris was asleep when I left and came home that day, so I missed the picture.)

If you want to donate to the cause, find Chris' profile here.

I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam

This weekend we went out with some friends to celebrate Halloween. Chris and I earlier in the week were trying to find simple matching costumes and Andrea came up with a great idea - Popeye and Olive Oyl.

We went out downtown during the Zombie Crawl, though only some of us were zombies. Zombie pirates, that is.

John and Julie went as Fred and Wilma.

These guys joined us after the Wolf Pack/World Series games were over.

Good times.