Let's get this holiday started!

Last night was a busy one at Chateau Plothow... lots of laundry, cleaning, wrapping of presents, packing for the trip home for the holidays... but, we're all set to head out today to start our tour of central IN/IL (aka Christmas).

Matt and I exchanged our xmas gifts last night as well. I must say that boy is a good gift-giver! He got me some DVDs and a gorgeous diamond necklace (love it)! In the frenzy of wrapping presents I accidentally wrapped up a present that was for my cousin Vickie and put Matt's name on it. When he went to open it, he said "this feels light" and I was thinking I had no idea what it was. I couldn't remember what I had bought him that would be light in that size box. Well, he opened it and looked at me and said "really?!?!" Oops! Hopefully, that's the only one I messed up! : )

Now, I'm just waiting for a file here at work that I have to process before I can leave today. Of course, I will probably get it at like 1:59 pm and Matt wants to leave "no later than 2 pm". Keeping my fingers crossed they get it to me soon!

Fun & busy weekend!

On Friday night, we hung out with the Wilken crew and ate some super tasty bbq from Smoque. Erin, Keely, Patty and I played quite a few games of Bananagrams while the guys hung out in Ross' man cave watching football. Of course, Sofie kept us all entertained with her unending energy. She's getting so big!

Look who got her xmas sweater early! Sofie's a Hawks fan!

I spent a lot of Saturday xmas shopping... that is quite tiring! And the stores were crowded - no fun! I managed to get home with THREE items that still had those darn security tags on them. I was NOT happy!

On Saturday night, we went with Ross and Erin to dinner at Carmichael's and to the Bulls game. Great food and company! : ) Too bad the Bulls couldn't pull off the win in the end!

Matt outside the United Center by Jordan

After a quick brunch at Flat Top Sunday morning, I was back out shopping. I think I finally got my Christmas shopping done! : ) I spent way too many hours at Macy's this weekend!

I'm really looking forward to Christmas and having a few days off to hang out with the fam! 3 more work days to go!

Official kick off to the holidays!

This past weekend, I kicked off the holiday season in a big way... I went Xmas shopping a couple of times, sent out a few Xmas cards and partied at the PO's annual Holiday Party! : )

I braved the cold (and blizzard like weather!) to hit the stores early and try to get as many xmas gifts as possible on Saturday and Sunday. I ended up doing the one-for-you, one-for-me a little too much, but there were some pretty good sales, so I couldn't resist! I'm still a long way off from being done, but I've got a couple weeks.

On Sunday, after the blizzard died down, we went to the annual PO Holiday Party. Good times, as usual!

Nice, Brett!

Me and Erin - we both are wearing basically the same thing we had on at last year's party!

Christmas Card 2011???

The beer of choice for the festivities

Grinch or Scrooge?

Danger... shots!

Erin being silly with my camera

Me and Matt

I bet an actuary wrote that

I found this funny...

We got an email today with info about our company's holiday party, which is next Thursday at the Civic Opera House. I'm pretty pumped about going, because I've never been there. Well, in the email, instead of saying "Details" or "Information" followed by the date, time, location, etc., it says "Logistics Summary". Really?!? "Logistics Summary"?!?

Weekend

Friday night, Matt and I stayed in and had a Wii bowling championship. I lost miserably. I think I need some practice!

On Saturday, we ventured out to the Holiday Bar for brunch. Matt informed me that the snow was GREAT for making snowballs, as he pelted me with them. Such a kid!

Saturday afternoon, we headed out to the 'burbs to Matt's boss' house for dinner and what was supposed to be a "how to change a tire" lesson. Last time we were at their house, one of the girls said she didn't know how to change her tires, so her winter tires were just sitting in her bedroom. Shannon's husband, Tim, was going to show us how to change from summer tires to winter tires. Since it snowed, he had already changed the tires, so we skipped the lesson and just hung out drinking wine from their wine cellar.

The theme for the night was appetizers, so everyone brought an appetizer or two to share. We cooked there as well, so we took over their kitchen and made quite a mess. We sat around the fire and ate all the great food!

Matt even got to shoot off bottle rockets from one of the empty wine bottles. I'm not really sure what that was about, but he was pretty jazzed about it. : )

Go Meat!

Last night, Matt and I tried out a restaurant we haven't been to yet in our 'hood.... The Publican. We had heard good things about it from some of our work friends. The website says the menu is based on simple farmhouse fare (lots of pork) in a space that looks like a European beer hall. Very true... reminded me of a beer hall we had been to in Belgium.

They have quite an extenisve beer list, which is one of the main reasons Matt wanted to check it out. The food was really good, too. It's family style, so we ordered a few things and shared. Matt started off with the chef's selection of oysters (that one was all him - I'm not a fan of those things!) We shared the Taste of three hams... sort of like three different proscuittos. We also had pork ribs with squash and a side of sweet potatoes with honey and thyme. Yum!

Those little "pens" on the wall are the booths

The restaurant has these booths on one wall and each one is closed off with swinging doors. We didn't sit there, we were at the corner of the big long table. On the walls, they have only about 4 pictures... all huge and all of big fat round pigs. Kind of funny considering that most people end up ordering something with pork in it.


Another one bites the dust

Another league of volleyball has ended... and in particularly bad fashion, I might add. Our team finished the regular season ranked 2nd out of 10. Not bad! Last night, we lost in the first round of the playoffs. Bad! It was totally frustrating. We lost the first game. We won the second game (that's when we "pulled our heads out of our butts" - something my high school basketball coach used to yell at us at least once a game). The third game, we lost by 1 point. Ugh. The worst part is that we really could have won... we just made stupid mistakes when it counted.

The game was at 9 pm, so I didn't get home until like 10:30. And of course, I was still WIDE awake from playing and all the craziness... it took me FOREVER to fall asleep.

Gotta grab a big cup of coffee this morning!

I'm kind of unlucky

Yesterday, I went to make hot tea in our Keurig at work. I put the little k-cup in and pressed start. Then, Niagara Falls happened. Hot tea spilled out from all directions, all over the floor, all over the counter, down the side along the drawers... just awesome. I start grabbing paper towels to clean it up. Just as I'm finishing, a woman comes in and tapes a sign on the machine that says, "Not operational - maintenance called". Um, you are about a minute too late, lady. I just looked at her and laughed. Only I would be the person that decides to make tea in the split second between someone else already figuring out that it's broken, telling the assistants and them putting the sign up on it so no one else uses it. Ugh.