not too shabby

Our Christmas travels started off with a wonderful experience on American Airlines...yes, I actually said that. We were set for a 10:30 am flight and they announced they were oversold. I love a good oversell opportunity! Usually I've got somewhere to be so it's not really an option, but this time the next flight was only 2 hours later (and our initial flight was delayed anyway so we waited even less than planned). Let the good times roll: we got 2 $300 vouchers; then we discovered our next flight had been upgraded to a 777, which is much bigger than usual (always a better option than some BS express plane or something); then we got to our new seats...right smack dab in business class. Which maybe wouldn't have mattered if it weren't for the giant plane, which meant these seats were AMAZING! Seat 11E had a smattering of awesome things about it - a fully adjustable seat that could recline all the way to be completely horizontal - a personal tv - a great selection of free movies and tv shows - personal remotes - and a coat hook (it's the little things!).

I'd like to add 11E to my list of "Things That Make Me Giggle," because the amount of joy I took from perfectly arranging my seat, Bloody Mary in hand, while watching Horrible Bosses next to Brian on my first day of vacation was pretty unreal. Thanks American!

Since arriving, we've enjoyed a chilly Texas Christmas, with lots of good food (QUESO!), holiday parties, QT with Keely & James, and a haircut for Brian (this was key for people not thinking he's a child molester). We'll have a big meal tomorrow and then Colorado here we come!

Hope you guys have a great holiday as well. Merry Christmas from all the animals!

fried aliens

Slash, onion rings - our Tuesday night homemade experiment tonight. Delish! But creepy looking, huh?

bells will ring

It's the most wonderful time of the year! For realsies! Although I'd like to register an official complaint to whoever decided to cram all this greatness into one month (and right on the heels of T-day, clearly the rival Best Day Ever)...

Jackie's Bah Humbug post actually kicked my butt into gear last week, since we have no excuses for not getting our Christmas party started :) I got our tree up, did almost all of our shopping, and queued up my seasonal Pandora stations - yahtzee!

Day 1

Tree: friend or foe?

Day 3

Tree = friend

Best friend

Michigan Ave is a beautiful on the walk home every day from work, with lights on all the trees and these great (smaller) decorated planters in front of the shops. Then last week we got our first real accumulation of snow - the latest one in history what this means for the long-term winter forecast, I don't even want to know. Anyway Christmas has officially kicked off and here's some of the greatness that December has in store:

*Work holiday outing + secret santas + smaller team party that night at a karaoke bar = me making some inappropriate song choices
*12 days off from work. Santa is a Saint!
*A bout of warmer weather with a Texas Christmas (bring on the tamales!)
*Celebrating Keely and James' wedding in the Fort (more to come on this I'm sure!!!)
*An amazing last-minute trip to go skiing...
*...in Colorado...
*...with Amy & Matt!

Clearly all those last points deserved their own asteriks. I have been majorly suppressing my travel bug because I knew we weren't going to be able to take a trip until next spring (I'd actually cancelled two trips already). Actually this exact day last year was the last time we went skiing in Wisconsin - it's been too long! Then the seas parted and through some major finagling with PTO, vouchers, discounts, schedules etc., a Christmas miracle came true! I absolutely love the mountains, love skiing, and love Amy and Matt...obviously you see the need for all the asteriks.

Bring it on, December!

still gobblin'

Over a week after Thanksgiving and we're STILL working on our leftovers! Once again, our very delicious meal was courtesy of Brian (with some respectable prepwork on my part) - I continue to be amazed by his ability to do things like brine and stuff a turkey, while my greatest accomplishment was designing a dough turkey:

As I referenced in my last post, this year had a lovely twist with our visitors, John, June, & Megan all the way from Tejas! They spent all week in Chi, joined us for Thanksgiving, and then Mego stayed through the weekend. Although this was a slightly less competitive holiday than last year's, I think it was to everyone's benefit :) The actual day was great, and beyond that we got in some good QT, lots of exploring, and a couple of delicious meals. Oh and a pickle ornament. Megan went ahead and bought that as a souvenir.

Here are a few shots from the weekend:

my first trip to Navy Pier with the McAdams clan

the ferris wheel yielded some awesome views of the city

then on Turkey Day...where all the magic happened!

my favorite spread of the year!

So John started asking us ridiculously subjective, arbitrary questions throughout the day like "POP QUIZ: What's the greatest band of all time?" etc. etc. The best one was:

"POP QUIZ: If Brian wants to take a nap after lunch, who else wants to take a nap?"

"You do?"

"That's right. You aced it."

ha.

Beginning to soak in the Christmas cheer at the Christkindl market downtown. Key notable in this photo - there were 39 other cabins like the one behind us, which Brian BUILT over the course of a few weeks. The man cooks and builds. Applause please!

Another great Thanksgiving gets checked off!