One of the Christmas traditions my family has is that we visit the Hotel Del Coronado and buy an ornament from their tree, which changes themes each year. Now that John and I are in a new area and are starting our own family traditions, we decided to head south to check out Kansas City, since we had heard that they go all out for the holiday season. It also just so happened to be the anniversary of our engagement, so we thought we'd celebrate that too while we were down there. It turned out to be a quite the tropical getaway, since KC had temperatures in the high 40's... we even enjoyed a coffee outside on the patio together!

Our first stop was Crown Center, home of the mayor's 100 foot Christmas tree. It was a pretty cool tree, but we didn't admire it long since it was windy as all get out. And it wasn't dark out, which was a bummer since Christmas trees don't have the same sort of magic without their lights a'twinkling. There was also a pretty fun play area surrounding the tree area. I think it might have been intended for children, but John and I had a good time nonetheless. I did a little nutcracker investigating and John found himself a sweet new ride.

Once we had seen all there was to see at the Crown Center we headed over to the Country Club Plaza, which was sort of the Rodeo Drive of Kansas City. Alright, it wasn't quite that fancy, but it had all the stores I miss from San Diego that are nowhere to be found in Iowa. We had heard that the Plaza had a pretty light display at nighttime, so we lallygagged a bit until the sun went down, and then walked around for a while and enjoyed the festive lighting decor.

Since we were in Kansas City, John wanted to make sure we hit up a barbecue joint, because apparently they are sort of known for their BBQ skills. His friend James had recommended a place called Gates, which turned out to be the most delicious cafeteria-style establishment I have ever encountered. As it turns out, the San Diego Chargers are a big fan of Gates BBQ as well, seeing that they had eaten there the night before and earlier that day! John and I did our best stalker impressions we could and hung out for about an hour after we demolished some tasty food, but then decided to leave - Charger sighting-less. We never did get in a fancy romantic dinner for our anniversary while we were in KC, but neither of us were too sad about it after engorging ourselves with the scrumptiousness that is Gates BBQ.

After dinner we took our full bellies back to the hotel, spent some time with a group of toilets, and then attempted to relax on the Sleep Number bed (seriously, has anyone tried one of those beds... they are terrible!). The next day we had a not-so-successful trip to Nordstrom, which nearly broke my heart, and headed back home to get back to the daily grind. All in all, we had a great time in Kansas City and are looking forward to visiting again soon.

Tonight I was introduced to the weather occurrence, and cruel and unusual punishment, known as sleet.

With this big storm impending, I had heard the word thrown around a few times and was looking forward to discovering what form of weather sleet actually was, since it doesn't (at least to my knowledge) grace San Diego with it's presence.

When the storm finally hit, I was driving a co-worker back to her car at the office. From inside the car, sleet appeared to be a miniature version of hail, which led me to believe that it was really no big deal at all. Then I had to get out of my car to help my co-worker carry her things, and oh-so-quickly I realized that sleet was not simply miniature hail at all.

Tonight I learned that sleet is more like sharp ice shards pouring out of the sky - hail's pointy and vicious little brother, if you will. In the two minutes I was without the shelter of The Dragon, I was almost certain the sleet had pierced my ears and face in several locations and caused bleeding. As it turns out though, it only felt like the sleet had pierced my face, which is a good thing since I'm not too keen on this look:In other news, John and I went to Kansas City, Missouri last weekend to celebrate the holiday season and anniversary of our engagement. I wasn't aware that Kansas City was a super awesome place with lots of fun things to do, but as it turns out it kind of was. We've been really busy with work and Christmas right around the corner, but I'll update with the KC details soon (I promise, Jody!).

Last week the whole family came to Des Moines to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thursday was Thanksgiving day as usual filled with eating, snacking, football, lounging, and then some more eating. It was also the perfect day to showcase the Iowa Hawkeye's cheer that John had been teaching Ashlyn. After we were rested and some of our food had settled, the girls decided to partake in some Black Friday shopping. One of the local malls switched up tradition a bit and had the stores open at midnight, as opposed to the usual 4am. Now, I don't know how many of you have ever participated in this sort of spectacle (it was my first time), but it was quite chaotic! We got there about a half an hour early and opted to wait in a gated area inside the mall instead of outside, since weather.com reported that it was something like 10 degrees outside. Well, apparently the frost-bitten outside waiters were allowed to enter the mall a few minutes earlier than the room-temperature waiters, and this upset some anxious shoppers. So, they decided to shake their fist at the mall authorities, so to speak, and shook/pushed the gate until it broke and could be moved out of their way. I mean, really guys? All for some discounted sheets? Come on. Anyway, we shopped the night away at the mall and then decided to head over to Kohl's to get in on their 4am madness. Frankly, that was where the deals were at. The Kitchen Aid knives I got were quite the steal! So, after we waited it out in the horrendous Kohl's line, we hurried home to get to bed by 6am and sleep a little before the kids woke up. All in all, it was fun to be a part of the mayhem and shop amongst the Christmas atmosphere.

Friday was a lounge day since many of us were tuckered out from our all-nighter shopping trip, and Saturday was a free-for-all day. John and I took Mady and Kailyn to a Festival of Trees event downtown where companies decorated Christmas trees in various themes for people to purchase or donate to local hospitals and such. Since it was a festive holiday event I, of course, enjoyed myself, and the girls had a good time making gingerbread houses and ornaments for Grammy. Then we came home and played Trivial Pursuit - genius edition, where, surprisingly, neither team won.

It was hard to be away from my family for the holiday, but John's family was, as they always are, so warm and welcoming which made it a lot easier. All in all, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. And to top it all off, we got our first big snow of the season!