Winter Break Recap

After a week in Western NY, I'm back in NJ!  And with a nasty chest cold.  Gross.  I work in a school with nine hundred elementary students, and managed to not get sick from them this entire year!  My only colds have been when I've come in contact with my parents (October- when they visited us) and now (when we went up and visited them).  Anyway...

After working til 2pm on the 23rd, I finished packing, we grabbed lunch and hit the road by 3:30 for our 6.5 hour drive.

24th:  We slept in and I don't really remember doing much that day.  We did send Molly Waffles and my parents' 2 dogs in to wake up my sister late in the morning.  They got comfy.

 (My sister doesn't read this, but she'd kill me if I posted a picture of her as she's waking up).

Then I ran (25F + windy, packed snow/ice on the roads), then we met a friend for coffee in the afternoon, and that night we had dinner with my parents and sister.  I didn't photograph the meal, but it was a spiral ham, rice, and a spinach salad.  And beer.

Molly likes to get up close and personal with empty beer bottles.  She also likes smelling beer on your breath.

Christmas morning we had breakfast at my parents and opened gifts with them.

Then we went to my brother-in-law's house (25 min away) where we met up with my husband's parents, his 2 brothers and their girlfriend and fiancee.  Took his brother's dog and our dog for a nearly 1-hour walk in the snow.

 

Later that night we stopped by a friend's house.  We were able to see several friends there, we had a drink and played some games (I must say, I'm pretty good at Taboo...).

As Molly came with us for Christmas festivities, we brought her with us to our friend's (with permission).  She was beat from her busy day of lazing around, a walk, and being pet by many different people.  She came along with us to our third stop without protesting and gladly napped in a new location, allowing a new batch of people to fawn over her. 

The day after Christmas, my aunts, uncles, and cousins came over to my parents' house and my sister, the chef, prepared the entire menu!

Here are some in-progress shots of her making crab and cream cream cheese wontons:

Dinner included Prime Rib (bummed I didn't realize this one was blurry!)

Chicken legs in barbecue sauce, roasted potatoes:

The previously mentioned crab wontons with a home made sweet and sour sauce in front, and mixed veggies (my mom made the deviled eggs around back).

The 27th: I went for a short run (19F + 15mph winds + light snow!), we met a couple friends for lunch, then went back to spend time with my in-laws.  We saw Tron in 3D (my choice would have been The Fighter or True Grit) then played with the Wii Fit that one of them got for Christmas.  Later we taught the brothers and significant others how to play Settlers of Catan (which my husband had received for Christmas).

Molly again was a good sport.  Of course, she never refuses some good snuggling or curling up on someone's lap, unaware of how large she is:

The 28th: Due to staying up a little late the night before, we slept in later than I would have liked before returning to my parents' house.  We went for a snowy hike at a nearby park with my parents, then swung by Starbucks to warm up afterward.  We had a couple hours of down time before my husband's parents came to my parents' house and the 6 of us went out to dinner at the restaurant where my sister is the chef.

29th:  Met in-laws for breakfast at a favorite restaurant downtown (but seriously this rich food thing was getting old by this point.  If I had not had half a dozen fabulous meals in the past 4 days I would have been much more excited about going out for breakfast).  After breakfast, we went back to my parents' and napped.  Most of our out-of-town friends had left town already, and both my parents had to go to work.  Husband enjoyed getting a $12 haircut from a barber (it's at least twice that here in NJ).  He returned with Dunkin Donuts gingerbread lattes!

He then waxed our skis and we went skiing that evening.  The evening pass is way cheaper than daytime skiing and that allowed us to see my husband's parents one more time before they left town.  Not surprisingly, pictures don't come out well at 5pm and later, especially while moving.  But the conditions were great and we had a lot of fun.

30th: Had breakfast, packed car, drove back to NJ.

Sadly my cough/cold was in full force.  Despite sleeping for 8.5 hours the night before, I managed to nap for 3 hours in the car.  After unpacking the car, I had some soup for dinner then fought to stay awake on the couch.  It turns out I had a 101.5 fever!  I put myself to bed at 9pm and slept straight through til 9am. Luckily(?) my fever was gone this morning. Hopefully I can kick this thing quickly and enjoy what's left of my break!

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and Happy New Year!