Recently in Christmas Category

Christmas Eve was playing with Dylan.
Dylan playing with my cell phone.
Stefanie and Joe coming by.
Bagels and pierogis.
Cookies and kolachkis.
2 dogs running amok.
Ordering pizza.
Watching He's Just Not That Into You (which was a movie that basically went against everything in the book...)

Christmas Eve Photos.

Christmas was playing with Dylan.
Going to see Sherlock Holmes (I wasn't that impressed).
Opening presents.
Dylan getting a camera and cell phone of his own.
Pasta because it was the only thing I could think to make that everyone would eat.

Christmas Day Photos.

Heather's presents under the...(Christmas?) turtle...

All my shopping is done, my presents are wrapped (in pink, of course!), and my tree is trimmed (in silver and blue!)

Christmas was kind of OK and went much better than I expected. I did get enough gift certificates to pay for 1/3 of the lens I want! Oh, and Guitar Hero World Tour! And I think everyone liked what I got them. I think my fav was the Superman/Bears shirt I got for my dad, because those are two of his favorite things.

On Christmas Eve we went to see Yes Man. Which was pretty good. I mean, for the kind of movie it was. I kind of want to start a band like the one Zooey Deschanel is in in the movie. Then we came home and watched the copy of University of Illinois Vs. a Mummy that Brian gave me and Hamlet 2. Then I watched some of A Christmas Story and stayed awake tracking Santa until he got to Chicago.

On Christmas we went to See Benjamin Button. It was good but reminded me of Forrest Gump. And I didn't quite get how the whole aging thing worked. Because

(SPOILER)
he was born as a baby but old but died as a babybaby, which didn't make sense, and I was kind of expecting to see a big Brad Pitt with a baby head, like this:

(END SPOILER)

Anyways.

Samson came to visit. Him and Luke played.

My dinner came out OK despite burning the carrots and them shriveling to nothing and despite accidentally dumping half a bottle of pepper into the chicken. Here are some dark blurry pics:

My financial panther threw a holiday party
many people came by and he was rather jolly
Professor John played piano, and antlers were worn
There was wine and sandwiches, brownies and popcorn
The night was filled with family and friend
and we drank and conversed until way past the end

More Party Photos Here!

Today was our departments Christmas party. Yes, yes, I know that Christmas was a while gone by now, but we're busy people damnit.

So a bit after noon we took the rest of the day off and headed to Quartino for lunch. We had three pizzas (I ate two: one topped with bunches of fresh spinach and one with a slab of spicy but yummy sausage), Italian "sliders" (a small sammich of fresh mozzarella (made in house) and tomato), nice pillowy gnocchi and green beans, and a sulumi platter of Duck Prosciutto, Bresaola, olives, artichokes, cheeses, and a few spreads. Yumyum.

When they brought out the dessert menu I was told that since we were also celebrating my birthday that I had to order dessert so I got some yummy profiteroles stuffed with chocolate sauce and vanilla gelati. When they delivered it everyone sang Happy Birthday. But then the restaurant staff brought me a cup of gelati with a candle so they sang again. I passed around the cup but was ordered by the boss to eat my whole dessert myself. Done and done.

After lunch we headed to 10 Pin for some bowling. It's a cool little place (I actually always expected it to be bigger) with a nice (but expensive) martini menu (I had a yummy peachy keen martini) and giant screens of music videos playing above the lanes. The first round sucked. I came in dead last. The second round I had the second highest score. I attribute that to the fact that for that round the scoring screen had turned to PINK. The next round we did a face off of marketing vs. pr with the losing team having to buy Starbucks for the department. Alas, marketing lost :-( I was horrible that round. The next round I did better (because the board was now a different shade of pink), but we still managed to lose again. Ohwellz.

Josh is back from Korea! Last night we hit up Piece. He was actually the one who brought up wanting to go and brought it up, which was funny because I had only just been there with Emily a few month ago. It was rather crowded when we got there, but luckily it didn't take the full hour wait they said it would. As we waited I ordered a beer called "Festivus" which actually was probably the most pleasant tasting real beer I've had. I'd seen it in Time Out so I decided to get it because it description sounded OK: "he leaves spices out altogether and instead coaxes a maple syrup-like sweetness from this strong, dark, Belgian-style ale with a touch of toasted malts in the finish."

We finally got seated but our table was right near the door/check in area so people walked by and bumped our table all night. We ordered up some yummy guac which was tasty but a bit spicy. I gave Josh his Christmas present which included an iPod sock and Beatles playing cards. He gave me a cute pink pouch thing and a letter opener that doubles as a hair clip, both from Korea. I can't wait to wear it in my hair so when someone asks me to open a letter I can say "Sure!" and whip it out!

I wanted to introduce him to the wonder of the white pizza with mashed potato and bacon topping, and he wanted meat so we also got a red pizza with meatballs and Italian sausage (I shot down his wanting ricotta.) They were both yummyyumyum.

On our way home we drove my Brookfield Restaurant and saw that it is no longer Brookfield Restaurant!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF?

At least the cow is still there.

We then stopped for Coldstone because, you know, 2 pizzas and guacamole and beer isn' enough to fill you up... So I ordered a small strawberry shake and then they asked me if i wanted strawberry ice cream with strawberries in it (which was what was on the board). I said yes and they said they wanted to make sure because some customers get mad because they wanted vanilla with strawberries. Who wants vanilla in a strawberry shake???

We called it an early night because Josh doesn't get any sleep.

And then I watched part of Alice in Wonderland on On Demand but passed out a little after ten.

New Year's Eve
I have spent every New Years that I can remember with my best friends from grade school. OK, so maybe that isn't exactly true as I do remember two times where I didn't see them, but basically, it's not a New Year's celebration unless I'm with them. It's also usually not a New Year's unless it's the day before the big day and we still don't know what we're doing. But this year, we all surprised ourselves and managed to plan ahead.

The night started off at Fuego for some Mex food. I met Jen and Adam at their house and we headed off to the restaurant. Due to her work kidnapping her, Nadia was running a bit late but that was OK as it took a while for us to get seated and we were able to get some yummy tableside guac and drinks. I had two strawberry coladas that tasted like milkshakes and were the tastiest drinks ever.

Nad finally arrived with her husband Bryan and Joel in tow.

We exchanged Christmas presents. Nad really liked the Kobayashi trading card and cloud necklace I got her and Jen liked the photo frame and softest sweetest socks I got for her. Jen got me some hot cocoa mix and a Starbucks and movie theater gift cards and Nad got me a cupcake cookbook complete with a cupcake tester and spatula. The first cupcake recipe I turned to contained smoked salmon. Score!

Dinner came. Jenny's tostadas looked like they would feed ten people. I just ordered an appetizer (thankfully because I was pretty full on chips and guac) of shrimp and scallop tamales. They were OK, but the sauce on top was way too hot for my taste and the shrimp were those baby shrimp that come in fried rice that I don't consider to be real.

After dinner we headed down the block for our show. We went to see the Second City Dysfunctional Holiday Review. None of us had seen Second City before so that was kind of awesome, even though it was the touring group (how the first time I go to SC is a touring group when the real group is 12 miles away, I have no clue). The show was funny though! I wished that there was more improv, they only did two improv and the rest were sketches. Artificial insemination! Hopefully I'll be able to catch another show soon!

The show ended with 15 minutes before the big countdown. We grabbed some champagne and noisemakers and awaited the big moment. They brought out Father Time and Baby New Year and counted down. Come midnight I celebrated with my best friends, and toasted some toasts.

Soon after, Jen and Adam called it a night and Nad, Bryan, Joel, and I headed to a house party at one of her coworkers. The party was fun. The woman whose house it was sings with this guitar dude. So they played music and later it turned into karaoke style where we all got to sing. Then Joel told a joke and totally killed the party. Just saying. Bryan nicknamed me "Valgina" and I kind of hate him for it because I kind of like it. And then one of Nad's coworkers asked me "Are you seriously with him?" And then I said way way too loudly "OH GOD NO!!!!" And then the guitar player started hitting on me and told me that he thought I was a foreigner because of my broken English.

And then around 4:30 or so we called it a night and I went back to my car. I was frozen out of the front and so I had to crawl in through the back door, and scrape the hell out of all the ice that had frozen on my car. But alas I finally cleared it out enough and headed back home.

More New Year's Pix here!!!

New Year's Day
I slept entirely too little. I got home at around 6am then woke up at maybe 10am. :-( Then I basically bummed around until it was time to head to JoeJoe's for the Rose Bowl. Quite honestly, I don't think I've ever watched a Rose Bowl game in my life. But the Illini were playing so I was totally psyched.

I, of course, arrived at Joe and Alina's way too early and told Joe that I must not have taken his advice on a New Year's resolution. Then more people came and it was game time!

There was lots of yummy food like brushetta and dips people made. And Joe tried out his new drink pouring machine and it seemed to work.

The Illini...well...sucked. I guess that's enough said on that.

What didn't suck? The phenomenal cake I made! I spent three days on this thing and dyed my hands completely blue in the process. It was a 2-layer cookie cake with blue frosting, an Illini I made of orange rice krispies, and orange roses I made from gum paste. Everyone agreed that it was very sugary.

About three quarters from the game I leaned over to Joe to ask him what USC stood for. I really never had bothered to find that out. He said University of Southern California. It was a toss up for me between Southern California and South Carolina, but I had had no clue.

Whatever team they were they were much hotter than ours. Sorry Illini, it is true. Glen made fun every time the announcer said "John Davis Booty" and Julie was sad that there was no one named "Dick" on our team to tackle him and how it was too bad he wasn't the tight end.

Alas, the Illini lost. No, wait. The Illini were slaughtered. Throw the damn ball once or twice, will ya???

I hope everyone had a very Happy New Year!!! Can't wait to see how this year turns out!

I hope all y'all had a very Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Goat Day/Whatever it is you celebrate this time of year.

As Bromann Family tradition dictates, we went to see a movie this afternoon: Sweeney Todd. It was an enjoyable movie, good, but not fantastic. It also felt entirely too long when it started at 11 and we weren't going to open presents until after the movie. I also didn't like the ending even though it was appropriate but sometimes you just want everything to be happy and smiley and it's so completely not.

So once the movie was over we headed back home. Jen and Dale brought their pug Sampson. Surprisingly our dog Luke was well behaved and didn't try to kill him, except he spent the whole night trying to lick Sampson's private areas.

Then we opened presents. My mom was thrilled with the postcards and CD I got her of the Bellagio fountains and my dad liked the presents I got for him at Pottery Barn Kids and my sisters liked their books and kitchen gadgets (hand blender for Nat, tomato press for Jen) and my dog completely ignored the stuffed sushi I got him because he was too busy licking dog penis.

Presents I got included a couple of Lonely Planet guides, some Martha Stewart kitchenware (because it comes in my shade of blue), and a kickass Illini sweatshirt.

Oddest gift goes to this one that Jen gave me:

Best gift will surely be blogged about tomorrow once I get a chance to start using it.

Then my aunt came by and we ate dinner of roast beast, mashed potatoes, green beans and bacon, rolls, macaroni, and salad. Sorry, I did not take pictures. Then we ate my buche. Then that was about it.

Two hours later and my aunt is still downstairs, but I came back up to my room to play with my toys and talk to Joshua who's in Korea right now where it is morning. He is not eating bugs. :-(

I hope everyone had a wonderful day! Merry Christmas everyone!

When I was younger my dad used to tell me that Santa doesn't like milk, that he really likes Pepsi. This year he told me that Santa's on a diet and likes diet rootbeer.

Today we went to my mom's family's house for a Jewish/Polish smorgasbord of pierogis and bagels. Basically that meant me and my sisters sat in the kitchen all night talking to each other.

My cousin works for Borders and they were having a contest for selling the most gift certificates. The amount on the card though didn't matter, just how many were sold. So I ended up getting from one aunt five $5 Borders gift certificates. Brilliant.

Now I am watching Saw III which is way to disturbing to actually watch and tracking Santa on NORAD.

I was getting antsy to see Santa, so I emailed NORAD. They responded rather quickly!

Hood's reaction: 9 and 12? what is this, the sears repair man estimate?
Scott's reaction: I think they think yo'ure about 8 years old

Tomorrow I open presents which I am too excited about because Christmas turns me into a five year old and my family goes way too all out on presents. :-)

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!!!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!

Update, 11:17pm

Update, 8:30am, Tuesday
Santa ate my cookies and drank my root beer!

Hood didn't agree with my choice of diet root beer:
me: my sister says that you are the one who lies and that you are probably jewish
Hood: the PROOF that you're the jewish one is this idea that santa would go on a diet
Hood: every american knows that santa is supposed to be fat
Hood: in fact, you're probably muslim

but Santa drank it all!