End Of Year Recap

Making Christmas Cookies! A few days before Christmas, Marc and I found a pretty decent sugar cookie recipe and decorated cookies. I got the bright idea to try to make pizzelles (Italian cookies). All my life, I have had these cookies. I have watched my granola (grandma), mom and sister make them.

How hard can it be, right?

I go out and buy a middle of the road pizzelle maker. First mistake! I should have borrowed one of the 20 old fashioned pizzelle makers that my granola and sister have.

I made the batter and everything looked and tasted right. I thought I was off to a good start, until I tried using the iron. I went through an ENTIRE batch of pizzelle batter trying to make a nice pizzelle. Instead, I burned my finger prints off and ended up with crazy looking pizzelles. It wasn't until I made the second batch of pizzelles that I got the hang of it. I ended up making a bunch of stuffed pizzelles because my regular ones were not looking pretty.

Better luck next year, I guess.

Marc and I had the pleasure of staying home for Christmas this year. Marc's mom's side of the family traveled to town. We had a wonderful time. We don't get to see them very often, it was a true Christmas miracle that we had everyone at our place at one time.

We ate a lot of cookies, drank a lot of beer, played a lot of pool and poker, and listened to a lot of guitar/banjo jam sessions. Guinness, jam sessions, food and family---that is my kind of Christmas!!

I was a little worried about cooking for 14 people, but it turned out great. Everyone pitched in and it was glorious. We did, however, need to use every available table and chair in our place to sit everyone for dinner.

Thanks again to everyone that traveled down to Virginia!

After everyone left, we just hung out with friends, went to some movies, watched football, etc. Sweeney Todd and National Treasure II were the movies we went to see. I loved Sweeney Todd--gotta love the Depp!

Thanks to Vicki, we all ended up going to the Ravens/Steelers game in Baltimore. It was fun getting out of town and watching the game. Who cares if it was cold, rainy and the Steelers lost. At least we got to experience the feeling of being heckled by drunken Raven fans--ha ha ha. We had a good time though!!! And nothing warms you up better than a trip to the Shiny Diner after the game!

New Years Eve was a little unexpected. I am not a 'dress up and go to fancy parties' type of person. It really makes me nervous being on the roads. We had a couple offers to parties, but we decided to stay at home. We made a bunch of appetizers, watched some tv for most of the night. Then around 9:00 we just got up, started drinking champagne, played a bunch of pool and sang (I mean screamed) a bunch of songs. Next thing we know, its after 3:00 AM. See--us old people can stay up past midnight! It turned out perfect, spending the last part of the year and the new part of the year with my favorite person in the world (aawwwwww).

Marc and I were pretty much off work from Dec 21 - Jan 1. I had such a great couple weeks just hanging out with Marc. I really hated going back to work--blah!

If you want to see pics from the last couple weeks, check out the picasa site.