Mexico Livin'

Mexico is the place for my family that binds us.Almost ten years ago my parents bought a vacation home in the once "small" little village called Punta Mita. I remember ten years ago thinking my parents were nuts. 

 

Needless to say, they clearly knew what they were doing.

 

I love having this little gem in Mexico. It's a place where all of my family collects over Christmas, and since we've been coming for so long we've gotten to know all of the great spots and people that make up the town.

My aunts and uncles have jumped on board lately too and this year we had a group of 18.

 

Our weather was a little funky this year. We had 4 days of straight rain. The first two days we made the best of it, played games and stayed busy, but by day four people were starting to get a little stir crazy.

Our days down there consist of reading, gossipying and guacamole, and our nights aren't much different. 

 

 

 The one upside of the rain though was the outgragously gorgous sunsets. 

One night we had a BBQ and had a Cuban band come in to get the party started.

 

 

Every year we try to go whale watching. December is the time of year when the humpback whales move their way north and make a little pit stop in Punta Mita. While we were waiting for our boat, we got rained out and they had to cancel the trip.

We stayed under this little "food truck" on the beach and melted our sorrows away with a few   Coronas, fish tacos and our first round of Heads Up. 

If you haven't downloaded the Heads Up app, do it now - it's amazing.

 

 

 

 Because a lot of the restaurants are open air, we had to get creative at night and stay pretty close to the indoors.

 

 

Luckily the group all got into games and we had a Heads Up competition after dinner which was hysterical.

 

Oh, and a pinata.

 

 When in Mexico....

 

 My sister Hannah and I were teasing her boyfriend that came down that we were going to kill him in tennis. We both played in high school and had him believing that we were actually quite good. 

We found an hour of non-rain to play, and of course, he won.

 

It was weird to be down in Mexico without Joel. He's been coming down for the last 5 or 6 years, and there was a noticeable absence without him there.  Although I really missed him, it was a nice treat to have seven selfish days of my family. There is never enough time and this year, I really tried to just enjoy laying in bed with my sisters and talking.

 

 

 

 The group left on New Years day and left just the five of us. We had done plenty of partying for the week, so on the last night we ordered in pizza, watched Blackfish, played with each others hair, and went to bed early.

 

 

 

It was such a great vacation, and reality is no where near as fun.

Merry and Married

Happy New Year! 

I have to say, I was a little sad to see 2013 go. It was one of the best years of my life - and when I look back on it, every single month was filled with friends, family, travels, health, and adventures. Can you beat that? 

Before I fully accept that a new chapter is among us, I want to recap our Christmas week and vacation to Mexico...and then I may actually get around to a 2013 recap and my 2014 resolutions. 

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 The weekend before Christmas...

 we had Joel's brother and sister-in-law come up from San Diego. The four of us have always have so much fun together, we are so lucky to have them 2 hours away.

We decided to do a pizza competition for dinner. All four of us went to Trader Joe's in the afternoon to pick out the ingredients we needed and then got to cooking.

 

Joel's brother had the best pizza by far - I'm still thinking about it. After we had finished eating - we polished off a few more bottles of wine and played a bunch of games that we had bought at Target earlier in the day. 

It was the perfect kick off to Christmas

Christmas Eve's Eve

Our friends Brent and Dawn, and their perfect baby Max came over for dinner. The four (now 5) of us have formed our own little family out here in California and I couldn't be more grateful for their friendship.

Also, I made this bruschetta garlic bread for dinner and it was a huge hit. It's a perfect side dish - I would highly recommend putting in on your next dinner party menu.

It was so fun having a little bambino at the house - kids really make Christmas more fun...even if they're only 4 months.

 

and to top it off, Joely got to change a diaper for the first time!

 

Christmas Eve

In the morning we took a family hike in effort to negate the aggressive amounts of calories we planned to take in. I'm regretting all of the indulgences now, but in the moment, holy hell were they good!

 After the hike we got dressed and made like it was party time. Since it was just the two of us, we had to make it special and fun - so out came the wedding china.

 

We've never cooked lobster before, so we figured Christmas Eve was the perfect night to give it a try. 

Joel did most of the work - and made us a Christmas cocktail in the midst of it all.

 

The lobster turned out perfectly and we capped off the night with a fantastic bottle of wine and a viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. 

 

 Christmas Day

We were so excited to wake up on Christmas morning - probably more so than some kids, which is semi-embarrassing, but true.

We did make it to  Christmas morning mass before we opened presents. After mass we made mimosas, turned "on" our fire, and tried the extend the morning as long as we could.

  

For food on Christmas day, I made homemade deep dish pizza. I was a little intimated about making the dough but it turned out to be really easy and SO friggen good.

 

 It'll be a repeat offender, that's for damn sure (but, not in January, time for a detox).

Everyone had a great Christmas and we are all sad that it's over.

 

Lucky for me, I left my boys the next day in Los Angeles and jet-setted to Mexico for a week with my family.

More on that tomorrow.

Friday

I'm not sure that I can come with 5 distinct talking points, and so, in the spirit of Holiday giving, I'm giving myself a break from the rules!

• Our holiday festivities pick up into high gear tomorrow! We have Andrew and Corie (Joel's brother and sister-in-law) driving up from San Diego for "our" Christmas dinner. We decided to go the non-traditional route and when they get here we are all heading to the grocery store together. Then, it will be a Shields vs. Shields pizza cooking off. After the gingerbread building in my kitchen, I decided that it's actually a lot more fun, for everyone, to get their hands dirty - and our Shields boys love any kind of competition.

 

• Monday we are having friends over for a holiday dinner, and then Tuesday and Wednesday are dedicated to just our little family. It will just be Joel and I (and Roscoe) for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and we actually couldn't be more excited. We are going all out on Christmas Eve - fancy champagne, lobster - and then after cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, we are going to just lounge and watch Christmas movies all day. I think it's going to be perfect.

• Oh, and then on Thursday I leave for a week in Mexico! I packed everything up yesterday so that I didn't have to think about it over the holiday break, so I'm literally ready to go! It will suck to be without Joel there, but I can't wait to have 7 straight days with my family in our favorite place in the world.

 

• My diet has been off the wall horrible for the last 2 weeks, and there is no end in sight for these next 2 weeks. This might be the first year in a long time that I actually join the rest of the country in the "Santa Seven". It's been bad, so January will be a really un-fun, hardcore month in our house.

 

• I don't want this Christmas season to be over. It's going be too fast and I just can't think to part with our lights and tree anytime soon. And, I'm really going to miss the Christmas music radio station too. 

::: Enjoy the last weekend before Christmas! xo :::

Our Christmas Card

This is our first Christmas card and I couldn't be happy with the way they turned out. We used Minted.com and had a really seamless experience. I think the quality of their cards is one of the best, so I will likely stick with them for years to come.

 I've been loving seeing everyone's years passed Christmas cards - it's crazy to see how many changes occur in just a year or two.

Who knows what next years card will hold but if 2014 is anything like 2013, we should be in for a treat.

Sausage Crack Dip

 My friend Shelby made this dip last Thanksgiving and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Dips are my weakness, and this one seriously lives up to it's name.

It's not healthy, but it's worth it.

The goods:

1lb of pork sausage, mild

2 packages of light cream cheese

2 cans of Fire Roasted, diced tomatoes with green chilies 

Directions:

1. Brown the sausage and cook through

2. Put all of the ingredients in a crock pot on low for 5 hours, mixing every 30 minutes

3. Serve warm with Fritos

This is the perfect holiday dip, you'll thank me.

Holiday Gatherings

On Sunday I had planned to host another ornament and cookie exchange for our group of girlfriends. Out of the 12 of us, only 3 were able to make it since everyone's holiday schedules are just pure insanity. 

It was actually really nice to have a small group. I made some caprese bites, and the most amazing "crack dip" that seriously lived up to its name.

 

 Since the group was a little more manageable, my friend Kristen brought all of the fixings for us to make our own Gingerbread houses - and she even hand made all of the pieces, which still blows my mind. 

 

It was really fun to sit at the table with girlfriends, keep our hands busy with our crafts, and catch up over champagne and snacks.

Once our houses were done, we swapped Christmas ornaments, filled bags of cookies and went on our merry way.

Weekend Report

Friday night I met up with Joel and his two co-workers - some of my best buddies-for happy hour and dinner at Pink Taco before seeing The Hunger Games.

We all loved the movie and unanimously thought it was wayyy better than the first one.

On Saturday, after Joel ran and I took a SoulCycle class, I baked like 300 cookies.

We ordered in sushi Saturday night, watched the Santa Claus and got into bed at 10pm. I'm starting to get concerned that we are becoming really, really lame. But, I will say, it's actually sort of my paradise.

On Sunday, I had a few girlfriends over to build gingerbread houses and exchange Christmas cookies. It was such a good excuse to get into the season and celebrate with some of my dearest friends.

I can't believe this is the last week of work until 2014. I have lots of work to get finished, as well as home "work", and planning for Mexcio, so it should be a pretty crazy week.

'Tis the season!