'22 Wrapped

January 02, 2023

'22 Wrapped

*Blogging while watching The Tigger Movie with Rhy*

Happy New Year! I finally have some down time to sit down and reflect on the wild December we had. As always, it was a whirlwind and I cannot believe it's over.

It all started with a work trip to New York City - it was such a special trip with NYC being so pretty during the holidays. My team put on a summit for Black Women Technologists at the NYC Google office -so much magic and it was such a high note to end the year on.

When we first bought our house, all I could picture was where all our Christmas decorations would go. It was so fun to find places for all our decorations and create such a cozy home.

My favorite thing was making my winter window boxes!

One of my favorite holiday things to do is make pot-pourri for all our friends as gifts. Rhynder was old enough to be the best helper this year!

We made a trip to Sterling, IL to see our friends, The Olsons. Ever since we got their Christmas card, Rhynder kept pointing to it saying "I wanna go to their house". So off we went :)

Our Alma Mater, Benedictine University, awarded Kyle with the "Rising Star" award for all this work he has done during his career - They threw a dinner and reception where he accepted his award. Proud parents and proud wife below. :)

Rhy got a hair cut and posed as a model for the hair stylist - she was really feeling herself afterwards.

Kyle's work had a delicious holiday dinner at LÝRA in the West Loop and of course since we had a babysitter, we took advantage for post dinner parents night out.

Mimi came into the city and treated us to such a special day of yummy ice cream for lunch at JoJo's Shake Bar, shopping at Macy's and live action BLUEY!!!!

Rhy is at SUCH A FUN AGE!! She wants to do all the fun holiday activities (like gingerbread houses) and is really good at them. Bran ended up eating her house, which she was NOT so impressed with.

Wrigley Field is one of our favorite places during the Summer so it was so cool when they turned it into a Winter Wonderland. We went ice skating, rode tea cups, and enjoyed the magic of Wrigley in the cold.

Christmas morning, we woke up in our new home for the first time. It was so special making traditions that will last a long time with Rhy - making cookies for Santa, matching pjs and biscuit and gravy bombs for breakfast. It was so magical to experience Christmas through Rhynder's eyes - it was the first year she actually understood what was going on. So awesome!

Christmas day we packed some of our new toys and headed to Sycamore to have a yummy meal with Mimi, Grumpy, Kris and Kent. Rhy's favorite part was doing gymnastics on top of Mimi.

Lastly, we rang in the new year with all of my family (well, all most all - we missed JuJu and Darla!) in Chicago and having a "big party" as Rhy would say. We open presents, ate, drank, played lots of games (including NYE Olympics), went to the zoo and enjoyed each other's company.