Christmas in Key West

I was hoping to be able to stay one more week and spend Christmas in Minnesota with my family, but on instead I'll be working in Key West over the holidays. A group of my friends and family were able to meet for a late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory on Saturday before I left. Everyone was excited about being on my blog so here's a few pictures. From left to right, my mom and dad, Jess (on the right) and me, Katie and Renee, and the Julies.




When I arrived on Sunday afternoon it was raining pretty heavily. Since then the temperature has been around 75 degrees with partly cloudy skies. I'm staying in the Doubletree Grand Key Resort which is pretty nice. No kitchen like what I had in Las Vegas, but everything else is better and I do have a small refrigerator and a microwave.

After arriving, I found out that my work schedule would be 5:00 am to 1:30 pm with Tuesday and Wednesday off. Good thing I stayed up all night on Saturday and was tired enough to go to bed by 8:30. I wasn't the planning on pulling an all-nighter, but Katie surprised me with a very generous Christmas present. She gave me an iPod Nano so I stayed up and loaded songs onto iTunes eliminating the need to bring CDs.

I intended to get up early today so I wouldn't get to far off schedule, but it was 8:30 by the time I rolled out of bed. Hopefully I can do a little better tomorrow morning. This afternoon I took the hotel shuttle downtown and walked around Duval Street. There are a lot souvenir shops, restaurants and bars in that area. I took a few pictures of Christmas decorations in the area and I also included a photo of Key West from the plane just before we landed. I have a few more pictures to share, but I'm just going to put them on Snapfish since Blogger is extremely slow right now. Merry Christmas! I'll be thinking all of you, especially over this next week.

Locks of Love Donation

I've been talking about it for awhile so I finally took the plunge today. Now just to clarify (since Renee gets easily confused), by "plunge" I mean that I got my hair cut. I don't want anyone spreading rumors about me getting married or anything else like that.

I leave for Key West this Sunday and my co-workers wanted to see me with short hair before I left so I thought no time like the present. I do have to admit that the hair stylist chopped a little more off then I expected, but everyone says it looks good and I'm sure I'll get used to it. If you disagree, it's probably best to keep that to yourself. I did manage to get Saturday off so I hope to see some of you then. To everyone else, you should think about taking a vacation to Key West. Below I've posted a before and after picture of my hair donation.

7th Annual Cookie Baking

Those of you who also know Tracy may have already heard about our cookie baking day, but I'll give you the lowdown too just in case. If nothing else, Renee would like another picture published. She's trying to get her modeling career going.

I can hardly believe this was our 7th year getting together to make Christmas cookies. The group includes Tracy, Katie, Rita, Renee and myself, all Gustie alumni. This time we made the old standbys; except for me. Rita and I both like to try new recipes, but the last couple years she has stuck with the popular hazelnut shortbread cookies. Sometimes my new recipes work out well and sometimes they leave something to be desired, but either way I enjoy spending the day with friends.

Here's a picture of the crew. Renee, Tracy, and Rita are on the couch and Katie (on the right) and I (on the left with the scraggly hair) are on the floor. I've already passed out some of the cookies to friends and family. They're a big hit as usual.