Welcome 2012

Greetings Blog Friends!

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With three weeks off from school, I had every intention of catching up on blog reading and writing a few posts of my own.  But I didn't factor how busy I would be with all of the fun things that I would be doing while visiting family and friends in California.  Some of the highlights included:

• My birthday dinner with friends and family.  My Mom made a delicious dinner, and I made peppermint cupcakes and set up a hot chocolate bar.
• Learning to use (& play) with my new iPhone!
• Starting and finishing my Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts.
• Baking M&M cookies and making Salted Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bark.
• A Christmas concert at my church.
• Fun & Festive Christmas parties.
• Christmas Eve at my brother's house.
• Helping my Mom in the kitchen with Christmas dinner.
• Figuring out the basics of my new camera!
• Going on a TMZ Tour with friends in Hollywood.
• Attending the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and a Ducks game from the 3rd row - thanks, Heather!
• Enjoying the performance my talented friend in a holiday dinner theatre show. 
• A delicious dinner at Mastro's for my brother's birthday.
• A special New Year's Eve dinner at 370 Common in Laguna Beach.  The Sous Chef is my friend's brother!
• Karaoke with friends.
• Read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
• And, of course, plenty of quality Auntie time with my 9-month-old nephew, including a couple of days of babysitting!

Now that I am home, and school has started, I have a bit more time to get caught up!  I'm sure that won't last long, so I am going to enjoy it while I can.  I thought I would also share a few of my goals for this year.

• Learn how to use my new camera and improve my photography skills.
• Eat more vegetables and fruits.
• Finish some of the projects around my house that I had planned for last year (like paint my bathroom)!
• Organize my pantry.
• Be more consistent with writing blog posts.
• Exercise regularly (at least 3 times/week).
• Start a vegetable garden.
• Read more books for fun, but not at the expense of the massive amounts of reading for school!

I'm sure I could add a lot more to this list, but I think this is a pretty good start for now.  

I have a project to share with you, but I'm having trouble getting a couple of the pictures off of my phone, so hopefully I'll get that resolved and posted in a few days.  It was a Christmas present, so I used my point & shoot Canon for most of the pics, because I didn't have the new one yet.

I hope that your new year is off to a great start!

Cheers!

Jenn