Dream Interpretation

I am a dreamer. My dreams are super vivid and very detailed and I always wake up in the morning and tell Derrick all about them if I can remember them. Sometimes when I'm super tired I even will myself not to dream that night because I'm always so busy in my dream...it's exhausting!

We both laughed really hard at my dream from last night. Here it is. 

I was at a babies third birthday party and I had a realization of why parents think there kids are so cute. In my dream I said out loud...."I get it now, no wonder!" It was a very gradual change from birth to year three but as I was looking at all the photos of the kid from birth through it's third birthday I could finally see the change as it was happening! The kid had gradually turned into a DOG! No wonder parents think their kids are cute!

So, that was my dream. What do you think it means? 

***Disclaimer: While awake I do think most kids are cute. I also think all dogs are cute.

Tournament Preparation

As long as the rain holds off today our high schoolers have their first tournament this weekend. It's local and hosted by NCSU which make Derrick and I happy. We are so excited to get a baseline for our guys and are very hopeful that it's a good experience for them. 

We haven't played any other teams yet and we haven't watched any other high schools play so we have no idea how we are going to fare. We do know we lost a lot of seniors last year. It will be exciting to see our old A team guys step up and our newer guys have their first A team experience. 

We have LOVED coaching so far. It's hard and it's time consuming and there are SO MANY details but we got so lucky with the guys that we have. 

We'll update you after this weekend and let you know how we do!

Snow Day!

Happy snow ice day! We knew it was coming so I moved all my appointments up to Thursday and Derrick and I have been vegging out in tights and sweaters all day. We just wrapped up season four of Parks and Rec and now we're starting "The Making of a Murderer". Perfection!

We did manage to get out for a slip in the ice though and tomorrow we're planning an exciting walk to the gas station!

Crosby was in her element! She loves the snow/ice! And she got to sport her new jacket that I got her a few nights ago for our evening walks we've been taking. Gotta get those steps!

She fell in that creek. Graceful...

She's taken to sprinting around the perimeter of the house when she's excited. Lately she's done it when Alison has come to visit and the snow and ice also earned a sprint today. Here she is rounding the last bend of her happy lap.

Best thing about snow days is there are no cars on the road so she gets to walk off leash...her favorite!

And our new house color looks so pretty in the snow! Look at the difference!

Also you an choose to be impressed by the fact that our pumpkins have lasted this long or you can choose to have no feelings about them at all. No judgement people!

Florida Visit

Derrick and I finally made it down to Florida over MLK weekend. Leanna and Kevin moved their family there in July and we were excited to get down there and see the new life they've made! We also needed to make sure we stayed on top of our favorite aunt and uncle status for Ellie.

We did a lot of hanging out with this girl.

She showed us how to properly use a tool box.

 
Vegged out on some Disney movies.

Played with the wooden crate we got her for Christmas.

And we probably worked on screwing those screws in for a solid thirty minutes. She knows how to lock in favorite niece status.

She also helped me get my steps in!

Derrick and I kept up our streak of escape rooms! There was a room in Ft. Myers and Derrick and I went with Leanna. There was a groupon that also got us free t-shirts but they were out of our sizes except for Derrick so Leanna is going to get ours later.

The room was pretty good! One of the better ones we did and it definitely had some good puzzles and challenging parts. We escaped with 6 minutes to spare and got candy!

The weather was gorgeous! It made it pretty difficult to come home to 30 degree weather. 

Celebrities are real people too ya'll.

Derrick and I also took some time to watch the Seahawks/Panthers game on Sunday. It was brutal although I'm not upset that the panthers won. Now I hope they go all the way! I just wish poor Russell's team had a better first half.

We're back to the grind and now we're both playing major catch up with busy work weeks. We both had to skip high school practice yesterday because our days blew up on us but 4 hours at Starbucks later and I'm feeling caught up and renewed! We probably won't make it back down to Florida until #2 is born so we'll be hitting up skype to make sure Ellie doesn't forget us!

Ellie the Artist

Did a little computer coloring with Ellie before naptime today.

Can you spot: Our names? An apple? My gender prediction for her sibling? The house?

Ellie is a true artist.

Addicted to Escape Rooms

Blogging is so hard to maintain when work gets busy! And work is BUSY right now! Derrick and I have managed to slip away to Florida for the weekend though so I am writing this from the comfort of Leanna and Kevin's guest room!

After Jay's awesome Christmas escape room we planned to meet Jack and Jay in Richmond the following weekend to cash in on his gift card. Derrick and I have been to a lot of escape rooms at this point and Escape Room RVA takes the cake for the most immersive experience from start to finish. The atmosphere of the whole place is just awesome! They invite you in and have you hang out in the lounge until you start. You can help yourselves to free water, soda, beer, and popsicles while you wait. The staff is super friendly! We were impressed from the start!

The first room we did was just the four of us. It was pitch black and we had to escape using all of our senses besides sight. And it was the first room where we started in handcuffs. We got out with several minutes to spare in that room.

We did a second room that day and the room itself was great but the experience was not so great. We did the Hannibal Lecter room. The problem was we were put in the room with 6 random people. So it was 10 people total. This to me is the only downside of escape rooms. They want to fill all their slots so they allow people to sign up for rooms with random people in order to get the most money for the room.  From a business perspective...fine...I get it I guess. From an experience perspective it is a huge let down. Jay said it best afterwards...one of the coolest rooms we had been in, one of the worst experiences we had ever had in a room. We ended up getting out with 3 minutes to spare (one of our worst times) and we all feel like we would have gotten out much faster without the other six.

Derrick and I have already decided we're ditching that business model if we ever open our own escape room.

This is the only picture I managed to get for the weekend. Thanks to Jay for the rest!

New Years Resolutions

I'm not great at resolutions. I forget about them or decide they don't matter or decide no one is watching so no one will notice. Or I just don't make them to begin with. This year though Derrick and I both have made fitness resolutions and we're trying to make each other stick with them!

Derrick got me a fitbit for Christmas and I LOVE it! I've seen them get increasingly more popular and thought it would be kind of cool to have one. Derrick got one for free from his work and ended up not wearing it. A couple months ago I asked him where it was and if I could wear it but he isn't sure where it ended up. Well then I forgot about it and then Derrick surprised me with a Fitbit One for Christmas! I love it because it's not the bracelet style, it's a clip on style like this:

I'm pretty much obsessed with getting my steps now. The first half of my resolution is to get 10,000 steps per day and so far so good. It's been really good to see how stagnant I can get and this has been motivating me to get moving. I've had to pace the house a few evenings to rack up those steps before calling it a night but Derrick put an e-book on my phone so I have something to listen to while I'm walking circles. I also like that you can challenge your friends. I'm currently in a work week challenge with a lot of Raleighwood teammates and it's very motivating to try to beat everybody else out. Crosby is liking it too because she's getting a lot more walks!

The second part of my resolution is no sodas on weekdays. I'm a soda drinker and I didn't want to quit cold turkey but I figured 5 days a week is pretty good. So far so good!

Derrick's resolution is also two part. He wants to be able to clime V5s consistently at the gym. This is a big goal! We're currently climbing 2's and he can sometimes do 3's. They get exponentially harder too. In order to reach this goal he is has another resolution to do 40 sit ups, 20 pushups, and 5 pull ups every night. I'm sure he'll increase those numbers as the year goes on but so far he's doing great and hasn't missed a day! I'll jump in and do them with him sometimes but mostly I just hold his feet :)

We're seven days in so far...358 to go!

Escape from Santa's Garage

Perhaps the biggest hit of Christmas day was a gift we coordinated for Jay's Christmas present. Most of you know that Derrick and I have gotten really into escape rooms recently. They have become increasingly popular and Derrick and I have done all of the rooms available in Raleigh. Essentially you're locked in a room for an hour and have to use clues and solve puzzles to figure out how to get out.

While Jay was in town a few months ago we took him to a local escape room and he was HOOKED! The addictive nature of escape rooms combined with Jay's infectious enthusiasm for almost everything was an immediate recipe for success.

Jay is notoriously difficult to shop for at Christmas (although he's getting easier) so this year Derrick and I were super excited to know what we were getting him. There is an escape room in Richmond, where Jay lives, and we wanted to give him a gift card as well as a future date to come up and do them together. Then our minds got churning and we decided the only realistic way to present this gift to him was in the form of his very own escape room designed by the Marceys!

His first gift from us was a locked safe box. The last gift of Christmas was a box with the keys in it. And then it started!

The box contained two elf hats and this note. 

I have to give all of the credit to Derrick. He was the mastermind behind all of this and I snuck in a few details. For example in the above letter I can take credit for the Christmas tree border, the Santa Claus signature, and the red and green font. Derrick handled the rest aka the WORDS!

Same with the rest of the room, Derrick was the brains of the operation and I snuck in some creative details and ideas. 

We also got some help from Mom and Dad since we were going to be using their garage for this.

Jay was instructed to pick an elfin helper. We knew he would pick Jack. He did. If he hadn't we would have eliminated all other options until Jack was the only one left. But he played right into our hands and picked Jack from the start. Jack wasn't in on it at all so he was the perfect partner. 

I won't go into too many details about the puzzles but it turned out perfect! We gave them 30 minutes and two hints. They escaped with only 3 minutes to spare which is about as good as we could have hoped for for a room we created on our own and didn't have any beta testers for. We incorporated reindeer, wise men, Christmas carols, and Christmas candy as well as our car and Derrick's laptop. 

In the end Jay received his Christmas bonus because he was able to open the garage door and free Santa's new high tech sleigh just in time for Christmas! We won't mention the panic button incident... 

This escape room was so fun to design! Derrick did an amazing job and had it so organized so that it all worked seamlessly. Jay and Jack LOVED it and we actually just took a trip to Richmond this weekend to cash in the first half of Jay's "Christmas Bonus".