An East Coast Christmas

Merrrry Christmas everyone!  I hope this finds you and yours enjoying the Holidays, because it finds us loving every second of our break :)

After a busy week of Christmas shopping, Seth and I managed to finish up just in time to enjoy the familial festivities!  On Friday morning, I headed to the airport to pick-up Andre and enjoyed a fun 24-hours with him in D.C.  We had lunch with Amy in Old Town, went to Maria and Jay's for dinner with my sister Marita and her family, and then met back up with Amy and her sister Meg for drinks at Russia House...good times :)  After all the fun, I'm really looking forward to Andre playing tour guide when we are in Miami for Jen's graduation in May!!!  Hope you're ready Andre :)

Andre, Meg, Amy, & Seth at Russia House.

Before heading down to Fredericksburg on Christmas Eve, we had to drop off Honey at the Pet Hotel (since we were heading straight to the airport on Christmas Day)...so naturally we had to do Honey's Christmas before we dropped her off...and boy was she spoiled by her Grandmas, Great-Aunt Carol, and Utah Aunt's :) 

Honey opening her gifts.

Honey's "Pugz Boots"...she didn't like them so much :)

Honey pouting about her "Pugz Boots."

Honey is "Daddy's Girl."

After a fun Christmas with Honey, we dropped her off at the Pet Hotel and headed off to Fredericksburg.  Lucky for us, Jen was in town, so Seth and I met up with her for lunch at our favorite Mexican place before going to Mom's house.  We had a nice visit with the family and were stuffed with Prime Rib and a wonderful Christmas dinner, courtesy of Pepe Roman.  Little did we know, however, how good Santa Claus would be to us, because it turned out we'd need all the energy from the food to open all of our presents :) 

Underneath our Christmas Tree :)

I love this wall-hanging...Thanks Chrys!

Luckily, the WSJ Wine Collection came early :)

Mom's Christmas Tree

Way too many presents...thanks Santa!

Mom, Andre, and Dad opening presents.

Seth, Mom, and Andre are thankful for Santa Claus!

Dad was wayyy too excited!

Even the cats were spoiled...Wheezie loved her cat-nip :)

After opening our presents on Christmas Eve, all that was left for Christmas morning was a delicious breakfast (courtesy of Pepe) and the Church Christmas program...and Mom was happy to have all THREE of her sons in attendance :)  After Church, Seth and I headed home to finish packing before Dad picked us up to head to BWI for our flight to Utah for Christmas Part deux :)

Happy Holidays!!!

Hello again everybody - long time, no see!  Now that the semester is DONE and I am officially HALF-WAY through with law school, my lameness from exams has come to a conclusion, I'm back in action, and am ready for a new Blog entry :)

Since my two weeks of exams were uneventful, there isn't much catching up to do about all that (although I did take a break between the two exams to meet a girlfriend that was visiting from Atlanta!)  While I don't know my grades yet, I think things went well and know I did my best :)  SOOO glad to be done!

Me & Alex outside of Front Page in DuPont.

Since being off from school, life has been even more jam-packed than before...but this time with parties and fun :)  To kick off our celebrations, Seth, my two friends (Tensie and Daniel), and I went to grab a margarita (or two pitchers) at Guapo's (an old standby for students at my school).    On Friday I spent most of the day getting ready for our party - cleaning, buying supplies, making appetizers/sangria, etc...  We had about a dozen of our close friends over to celebrate the end of another crazy semester!  But we didn't stop there...we had to get our dance on, so we headed downtown to boogie down :) 

Theo, Yasmine, Tensie, Veronica, Me, & Emily waiting on the Metro.

Seth & Yasmine boogying down :)

Saturday we were up and at 'em fairly early to meet Amy and Megan for brunch at LevelOne (again, in DuPont...kind of our stomping grounds).  As we were getting off the Metro, Seth looked at me and said: "Brandon, my wallet fell out in the Metro."  Shortly after speaking with the Metro guard at the station, Seth got a call from his credit card company with a message: some lady had found the wallet and left her number for Seth to call her so that he could come and get it.  It's so nice to see that there are still good people out there...and with the good news, we still made it to mimosa hour with time to spare :)

Meg & Me at brunch with our bottomless mimosa :)

The rest of our Saturday and Sunday evenings were full with dinners, holiday parties, and lots of fun!  Then, on Monday morning when the alarm went off, I looked at Seth, smiled, and laid back down :)  (Sorry babe!)  But, I haven't been a lazy daisy...I've been busy doing much needed Christmas preparation!  Our cards are out, shopping is almost done, and now we just have a few more details to wrap up before the weekend is here! 

The result of my shopping today!!!

The result of Honey playing with her new toy :)

And with that, I think you're about caught up in the life of Seth, Brandon, and Honey.  I hope this finds you happy, healthy, and enjoying the holiday season!  Between last minute Christmas activities, travel, etc... there is much more to come this weekend...but until then, much love and many well wishes :)

Half-Way There...ALMOST!

Hello again :)  Hope this Blog finds you well...it finds me a very happy camper :)  For those of you who don't know, December is a pretty lame month for law school students, thanks mostly to exams (boo!)  Luckily for me, however, this December won't be THAT bad - although, it still is pretty lame :)  Since I only have two exams this year (two classes had papers that I have pretty much finished and my internship ended before Thanksgiving).  I am not as stressed as I was this time last year!  That being said, this will likely be the last Blog I write for the next two weeks (partly because I will be studying, but partly because I will also be lame and not have much of anything fun to write about)...and then I will be officially half-way done with law school!!!  This week though, I do have some fun updates to share, so away we go!

To celebrate the end of classes (along with the end of social life/beginning of exams), some friends and I went to Cactus Cantina to grab a margarita for my friend Abby's birthday.  The week got even better when we got a call from Chrissy asking if the Ahern clan could come visit and spend the night at our place before heading back to Utah...and of course we said HECK YES!  We had a great visit and are so glad we got to see them a SECOND time this trip :)

Happy Birthday Abby!

Look what Santa left us under our Christmas Tree!

On Friday, we bid adieu to Chrissy, Ryan, and Baby Nolan and got back to the grind.  I had to head to school, while Mister Seth stayed home to recover from his cold (luckily, he seems to be feeling better now!)  Although Friday and most of Saturday were pretty dull, we did have a really fun Saturday night (courtesy of Marissa and Peter!)  Seth and I attended the CentroNia Charity Auction (an annual event that we were also able to attend last year) at American's Katzen Arts Center.  CentroNia is a great program in DC and Maryland that has 5 campuses which provide programs for underprivileged kids.  Maria (Marissa's Mom) sits on the Board and each year, CentroNia hosts a fundraiser where they sell tickets to the auction and auction off donated art from local artists, as well as handmade crafts.  This year was the 25th Anniversary Bash and was wonderful - yummy food and drinks, great company and entertainment, and we were even able to buy someone their Christmas present :)  Check out the video and pictures below...good times!

Maria (on the TV) giving her speech.

Jay, Maria, Seth, & Me - too bad you can't see my bowtie :)

And with that, it's back to editing my papers and counting down the days til my FINAL final :)  Until then, wish me luck and I will talk to you all very soon!