Christmas Eve in NYC!

choo-choo to the city!

Times Square - two of our favorite things - The Loft and Firetrucks...

something down in the subways needed help?

lots of cool displays

(it was pretty cold... note mom's PFD hat)

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree - not so crowded for Christmas Eve

Times Square on the Steps

Merry Christmas!

Can you tell I'm busy? We also did lunch at Rosie O'Gradys. Christmas Show at the Rockettes. And were home in time for some appetizers. The cheesecake managed to stay in one piece until Christmas Day - Juniors is the best!

let's get this party started!

The parents have arrived in a semi-timely fashion. The airlines should just add two hours to each flight and be done with it - delays just happen. Steph will arrive today - about 12 hours late, but that's ok I will leave work early to go pick her up. Great excuse!
So far we have managed to keep the Christmas tree alive and well watered. We got it Thanksgiving weekend so it's getting a bit old, but still sucking up water every day - that is a good sign. The kitties are enjoying their time under it, but starting to not sit too long as I think they might be getting pokies now from the needles falling. Mani is doing a bit better and is on new pills now for his crystal issue. Oh the joy I had this morning shoving it down his throat. He only foamed at the mouth for five minutes this time and didn't lose the pill he was trying to hard to puke up. I know the elf saw that one!
Tonight kicks off 4 days of fun! First up is a NY Italian dinner, take-out style of course because they serve you way too much food when you eat there! Christmas Eve we are heading to the city to enjoy lunch in Times Square (gotta love Open Table for finding a good place!) and then to see the Rockette's in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show. After I'm hoping it starts to snow a little so the lights in the city will look cool - I mean they are cool without the white stuff, but they just seem to twinkle more with snow. We missed the big storm this past weekend so we would love to see some. Christmas we will put the kitchen into workout mode and eat lots of yummy food and of course open gifts. Now if the weather man is holding true to his word we should have a good dose of ice on Christmas Day.
Now I'm thinking I need to take lots of pictures... and hey my house is really clean so it's ok to do that!

Tattle to Santa Kitty

Mani has been spied being a naughty kitty! We have told him that Santa Kitty is watching and he will not get his presents if he is not good! In fact he was naughty right under the Christmas tree this morning! You should know that Friday we found out a reason for his peeing in the bathtub - crystals in his urine. (as a side note I can't think of a better place for him to pee other than the toilet and his litter box) So Santa Kitty you can take that "naughty" act off his "naughty boy" list as that was not his fault - he was sick. But you should know that today's antics are for your "naughty boy" list for sure!
First off he hid under the bed after eating his breakfast and would not come out. Finally he was kicked out by the broom handle. Then he ran downstairs and "hid" under the Christmas tree. Your elf can confirm this as he is stationed on the Christmas tree to warn us when they get snoopy. Then he refused to budge from his corner out of our reach until Mark reached under and pulled him out. Much squealing ensued - much more than ever before. (this was absolutely hilarious to me) All to avoid taking his medicine! It's only a pill!!!
So tomorrow morning we will try again and give him his medicine. This time before he eats while he is still the snuggly morning kitty that we all know and love.
Hope you are taking notes Santa Kitty...

Christmas Party Team Builder Event

Just a funny work story. This year for work we decided to try something different and had a full Italian dinner catered in. It was to die for and trust me we took our taste testing lunches very seriously. The only downside to the caterer we chose is that we had to serve it, but no cooking or dishes! With a great team we handled the serving part with no issues.

So the menu... We had penne ala vodka, lasagna, grilled veggies, eggplant rollatini, sausage & peppers, awesome salad and tons of desserts! We decorated with really cool paper tablecloths (note to self DO NOT USE PAPER!), lights, bows, the works. The tablecloths were not my idea and I would not have bought them for the food serving table - just the eating table, but that is another topic for another day. They delivered the food and we had it set up on the warming trays with sterno to keep it hot. (note to self sterno is HOT). See a trend here... paper and hot? Now I had tons of helpers - at least 12. No one thought that the sterno would get so hot as to catch the paper on fire. The paper was backed with plastic. (note to self plastic is smoky when on fire!)

15 minutes to chow time we are all getting suited up with aprons and Santa hats and my boss comes out of the room with all the food and says very calmly that we have a problem and he needs help. No mention of fire and no panic on his part. So we all go into the room and he thinks we can put it out with our hands or something. LOL! We start moving the pans and pulling out the burning tablecloths. At this point I yell for someone to grab one of the 120 fire extinguishers that we have in the building - we do training on how to use them every year. Smoke is filling the room and people are freaking out that the food is going to be ruined and we will have 80 hungry people on our hands. Fortunately we didn't uncover the food yet and it is TIGHTLY sealed. And fortunately Bob the fire extinguisher man has great aim and carefully puts it all out while we all cough and gag and try to save stuff. This is where the term Team Builder comes in - we had to work together to save the food! There is white dust everywhere! Smoke is everywhere and people are freaking that the sprinklers will go off. I'm thinking it has to be hot to set them off and am the only person to know this random fact. Turns out I was right - thank God - can you imagine water being added to this mess? ugh.

I am laughing at this point - what can you do? The only thing lost was some bread. I couldn't tell if it had the white dust on it, but assumed it did since it was all over everything so I pitched it. With 10 minutes left the team managed to wash down the floors, get the huge fans going to suck out the smoke, pull the rest of the tablecloth off, re-light the sterno's and start serving food. It was fine - it was tightly sealed. Actually it was very good and I was more than starving at this point. It was killer to have to serve it and wait to eat.

So lessons learned upon the investigation of the fire (we investigate every safety incident at work with a team - no exceptions.... part of my job - LOL! for real!):
Next year no paper tablecloths backed in plastic.
Wait make that NO tablecloths of any kind.
Water would put out the fire and not make a mess.
DO not break up bags of ice over the pop cans in the cooler. They explode.
We need 300 servings of food to feed 80 people. Those men can eat!
DO NOT put the left overs in the office fridge because 3rd shift will come take it all.
Eat the cannoli's the day of the party or they get soggy.
Ok they didn't come up with all these, but a few of them - the others I added to make it better next year.

Quick Trip to DC

We made a quick trip to DC this weekend to see Eastern Kentucky play at Maryland. They did pretty good and even tied it up once. The traffic in DC is something else - so glad we do not live there. You could spend half your Saturday in the car trying to run errands. Above is proof it was tied at one point!

Debby and Greg gave us the whirlwind tour of DC at night and since we did not have our camera we made use of Mark's blackberry - used mine at the basketball game. Handy, but not as good! We had some pretty yummy crab cakes at the Old Ebbit House along with scallop sweet potato's - no idea what was in them, but they had a kick and were very tasty! We topped the night off with some bread pudding and another glass of wine.

Buried in Ice and Snow!

So it's been ages since I posted anything. We've just been busy traveling for Thanksgiving and then getting stuff out for Christmas. So today it's snowing, icing, sleeting, raining and I'm holding out to see if the roads get better. Not worth it. Not overly exciting I know.

I did try a new recipe last night for Christmas cookies and I didn't copy it before Tiffany left so I will share it later, but it was really good. Biscotti with heath bar mixed in! Yummy! Great with hot cocoa and super easy to make. Never knew biscotti was so easy. I'll put it up later.

Happy Snow Day! oh wait I mean ICE!