Happy New Year

Whew! It's been a busy and fun past couple of weeks... The night before we left for Chicago, Rob and I (and Mikey) opened presents here in Colorado. Rob made me a beautiful jewelery box and he also got me a new baseball glove since my old one I bought was used and smells like icky, sweaty man. Mikey got some sweet toys; they are little plastic jacks, which Rob proceeded to step on later that evening causing extreme pain and said we have to get rid of them now!

We left 60 degree, sunny Colorado for Chicago on the 20th via plane. After an hour delay, due to an 'overweight cargo container', we finally took off and had a relatively uneventful flight. I did find a Sodoku puzzle in United's Hemisphere's magazine, and now am completely addicted to those little number puzzles of glory.

Upon arriving to Chicago, we spent the following days doing some last minute Christmas shopping, eating some good ol' Portillo's, and attempting to spend as much time as we could with friends and family. I also had to do a bit of work, so that additionally kept me busy, but because of the holidays, it's been pretty slow.

We celebrated Christmas with my parents on the 23rd with a delicious meal of Prime Rib and my favorite au gratin potatoes and opened presents after dinner. Speaking of au gratin potatoes, one gift I received was a mandoline (a kitchen tool that slices stuff- all sorts of thicknesses and even does waffle cut, crinkle cut, and julienne). It's pimp. I'm very excited to have a 'nice' mandoline now. 'Nice' meaning something that cost more than $5 and has safety features. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I had bought a cheapo $5 mandoline months ago to slice my potatoes for when I make au gratin potatoes. Let's just say the safety features on that one were nonexistant, and I proceeded to slice the potatoes and as a bonus, sliced my finger tip off. Yeah, that was fun. Now that cheap mandoline will be going in the garbage as I have the Cadillac of mandolines (which has many safety features- thank goodness). Rob got lots of cool Cubs gear and we got "The Price is Right" DVD edition boardgame. It looks amazing. Now Rob and I can "Come on down!" whenever we like.

Saturday (Chrismas Eve), we drove down to Gillespie for Rob's family's festivities. As tradition has it, we spent Christmas Eve at Mommo's house opening presents there and enjoying a wide variety of tasty treats. Also of note, which I was warned about, Mommo's house is tiny and with about 20 people inside, the temperature rises to levels unthinkable! Well, okay, it's not that bad, but I can tell you I will not be wearing a wool sweater next time I am there for Christmas Eve! It was really a fun night and so nice to see all of Rob's family there. After Mommo's, we went to Rob's parents house and opened up presents there, while watching "A Christmas Story" about 3 times in a row, thanks to TBS airing it nonstop for the whole day of Christmas Eve! We got so many nice things, best of all, our plane tickets to come out to Illinois for Christmas and Rob's dad transferred all the video's of Rob's basketball games from middle and high school to DVD. I can not wait to watch those!!

Christmas Day brought us back to Mommo's for a delicious Christmas dinner and following that we went to Marilyn's cousin's house later in the day where we opened even more presents. By Christmas night, I was really beginning to think we were Jewish because of the number of days in a row we had opened presents! The day after Christmas, Rob's aunt and uncle came over and we had a scrumptious breakfast and had a marathon present opening with them that lasted nearly 3 hours.

The rest of the time we spent down in Gillespie and Edwardsville, we took it easy, visiting Rob's cousin and doing a little shopping and watching some football.

On Wednesday afternoon, we headed back up to Chicago to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew before they were heading back home. We went to eat at Lou Malnati's that night- sooooo yummy. Thursday we ate at Portillos (again) and ran a couple errands around town. In the afternoon, I took my parents to the airport, as they were heading to RI/Boston for New Year's Eve/Day. That evening, we went to Payton's Roundhouse to meet up with a couple friends. Friday we came home. And boy I was ready to get home; I was missing Mikey and just wanted to sleep in my own bed! Colleen and Jason took us to the airport, and on the escalator down to the moving walkways in Terminal 1 that takes you over to Concourse C, I realized I left my cell phone at my mom's. UGH. Thankfully, Colleen was heading back to Bolingbrook, so she picked up the phone for me and shipped it to me. But because of the holiday and because I'm cheap, I won't be getting the phone til Wednesday!

It was so nice to get home and see Mikey. Poor kitty has some bald spot on his side though. He gets very stressed out when we're gone and pulls his hair out. I found piles of his hair all over the place. It was way more than he's pulled out in the past, so I felt really bad. I just don't know if I want to leave him again!