the holiday season is in full-swing over here.

last week was joe's work holiday party 

at the spinnaker in sausalito.

good food. good friends. 

great dancing!

joe and i played it really smart this year and decided to wait until last weekend to start any and all christmas shopping. 

saturday we went to the city for shopping and to see the nutcracker. 

i've been not-so-subtle in my hints to joe that i want to see the nutcracker ballet. 

it didn't happen last year, so i vowed this year we would do it. 

i was ready to spend big bucks on the real deal, but when i was presented with the opportunity to see the san francisco youth ballet academy perform the nutcracker for only $7 a ticket!!, i couldn't pass it up. 

"the kids will be really cute"

"i've seen some amazing child ballet dancers"

"$7 sounds so much better than $100!"

just a few of the thoughts i had.

you guys...i was wrong.

i'm pretty sure we were the only people in the audience who didn't have a child/sister/brother/some-sort-of-relative in the performance. 

and i'm almost positive i'll have nightmares about the giant mouse and nutcracker for the rest of my life.

bravo kiddos, but lesson learned = sometimes, you get what you pay for.

it's a good thing we got a lot of shopping done, ate some delicious food, and ended the night at ghirardelli, so we could still call the day a success. 

have i mentioned that i love the city at christmas time?

all i want for christmas is a house on the marina. please, santa?

we leave tomorrow for utah 

(2 days earlier than planned thanks to a snow storm rolling in!!! 

do you think i've ever been happier to hear about snow? no, i have not.)

that means i have a whole lot of shopping/packing/wrapping/cleaning the apt. 

to get done in one day. 

i could really stress out right about now 

if excitement wasn't the only emotion i'm capable of feeling.

see you soon, utes!

ps. sorry for the lack of quality in the pictures. 

they were all taken on my phone, most in motion. 

but i'm also not sorry, cause its either phone pictures, or no pictures.

(usually that means no pictures...)