Frankly, all we did was work in 2011. It was a tough year in that respect but we were grateful to have all the opportunities. Dale had a photography studio and building it kept him ridiculously busy.

I started my own freelance business and was buried up to my neck from about June on.

We went to Minnesota’s North Shore for vacation and it was quite cute. We didn’t go on any camping trips but we did make a quick trip to Saugatuck for our anniversary. That was nice! We really needed to get away.

I made a quick trip to Grand Rapids to meet up with my dear friends Rebecca & Heather and had a great time. Sadly, my camera broke on that trip and I was without one until this weekend–Dale got me a new one for Christmas! Yay!

We were lucky to have a few guests this year and we enjoyed each visit immensely. Love to have company.

I bought an American Girl doll named Molly when Betsy, Bryan and their kids came to visit. We had tea at American Girl. It was the most fun tea party I ever had! Am now obsessed with buying outfits for Molly. I’ll have to post her Christmas present unwrapping photo shoot that Dale did. He had more fun with it than I did, I think. Ha!

We threw a party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and it was a lot of fun.

Bela and Monty continued to be cute and cuddly and all kinds of adorable pets.

Christmas was a whirlwind weekend trip to Flint and back–nice but very fast and we didn’t get to catch up  with as many people as we would have liked.

As for 2012? We plan to have a little more fun. We hope to enjoy camping, and Dale is looking forward to playing with his new telescope then (he’s been making accessories for it and researching astronomy during every spare second).

I have fantasies of being more athletic. And maybe taking an archery class! And hiking more. And continuing to grow my freelance business.

We might buy a house this year (we’re just starting to look). I will get my master’s degree in the spring and turn 40 (eek). And our 10th anniversary will happen in October (we’re already planning a trip). So I also hope to get it together and back to having little adventures and blogging about them. For posterity, if nothing else.

Monty was bored.

So was Dale…so I got him an ice cream maker. It has gotten quite the work out since then!

To relieve the boredom we took a quick trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to see a crazy replica of the White House. They wouldn’t let us take photos of that so I snapped photos of this crazy dress instead:

It was lit up and it the lights would run and shift like a wacky string of Christmas lights!

We have a big road trip coming up! And we are planning on having the Best Summer Ever once we get up off the sofa.

In super sekrit and exciting news, Dale did a photo shoot last weekend that might just end up at your local magazine rack. Can’t share the photos yet but I can tell you it was a shoot of a custom hot rod. We’ll share more info–and photos, of course!–as soon as we can.

Sorry for the weak update and we’ll try to get a more exciting life in February.

Monty, taking his place among the presents.

So Dale says he’s too busy to give me photos–and has been for months–so I guess from now on you’ll get photos of stuff I take pictures of (until you form an uprising). These photos will largely consist of blurry pictures of the cats doing things I think are cute, photos of our Christmas tree, photos of Monty in front of our Christmas tree and random images of half-finished crafts.

This blog is about to get a lot less fabulous is what I’m saying (or more fabulous if you’re into craft projects and blurry cat pics).

Also? I have a new laptop and it isn’t loaded with my sweet photo processing software. So the images will also be oddly sized and lacking color correction to offset the blurriness. So there’s that.

In other news…
Mr. Squirrel would like you to know that he still lives on the back porch and will gladly accept any packages that include sunflower seeds, preferable the black ones. They’re his favorite and he sort of eats a shocking number of them a week. He’s a little nervous that I won’t have time to go to the store to get more before we head back to Michigan for the holiday. He’s precariously low on seeds, people!

I started grad school and have been extra busy at work, we had company for approx 47 days in a row, and Dale has been buried at work with no end in sight!

So while poor Dale is still buried (he’s shooting a wedding tonight and has to work all weekend poor thing) I’m going to be studying this weekend and cleaning the house.

And, if I get a chance, I’ll actually put up some photos of our recent company and events.

But first I’m going to catch up on your blog–yes, yours!

And it turns out that our server is soooooo old that we had to buy a discontinued hard drive to get the thing running again. Yeah, we’ve got to scrape together the big fundage to buy a whole new she-bang pretty soon.

Sucky!

Anyway, more soon!

Anyway, thanks to all the party people we’ve hung out with lately! We went to Evanston to see the Roy Lichtenstein prints show with a pal from work, Megan. Very cool show, though poor Dale is not a fan of pop art at all! I am a huge fan. It’s one of our few points of total aesthetic disagreement! Oh, well, you can’t agree on everything.

I’ll take pics this weekend. We’re likely going to the Taste of Chicago and playing in the city this afternoon.

Dale spent Memorial Day morning at a moving exhibit: Eyes Wide Open.

He spent the morning photographing nearly all of the 3452 boots on display. Click on the link above to learn more and see select shots–or check out the whole gallery!

We’ve also been busy socializing with people from work–lots of comings and goings so we’ve had happy hours and parties to attend.

We played “skill golf” a couple of weekends ago at a famous place called Par-King! We didn’t get any photos, sadly, but it was a really fun afternoon. It’s billed as “The World’s Most Unusual Miniature Golf” and it’s filled with fun custom holes including a roller coaster that takes the ball on a crazy ride! Another hole features a replica of the Sears Tower and take the ball for a ride up the elevator of the tall building! Ha! It was a hoot! To give you an idea how wacky the place is, I did a search on Flickr. Click here to check out the fantastic holes–including the awesome Mt. Rushmore hole!