Happy New Year!!!

Well, it’s 2008 already. Scary how time flies (yes, I’m aware of how trite this comment is). How were your holidays?

We had a nice holiday season but busy. We’ve had fluctuating but constant house guests since the Wednesday before Christmas (yes, that is a solid 14 days of house guests) with the last of them leaving this afternoon around 3:00 p.m. and, as much as I love entertaining, it’s nice to have the house to ourselves.

The younger of my brothers and his kids came up for Christmas and we had a great, relaxing time. We ate, played games, gabbed, watched movies, laid around, skied, and just generally hung out. It was a good time. The day before they left my sister and her husband came up and they just left today.

Christmas dinner was simple but good:

Homemade onion dip
Relish plate
Prime rib
Cauliflower gratin (first time I’ve made this and it was really a good recipe)
Leek mashed potatoes
Chocolate mousse cake

I opened up a couple bottles of 1997 Silver Oak Cabernet that were perfect. All in all, good eats.

The cheese gifts went over well but I realized that logistically they were a bit challenging. They got here about a week before Christmas and had to hang out in the refrigerator and be wrapped the day we exchanged gifts. I froze a couple of those freezer gel pack things and put them in the box when I wrapped them but still, I wasn’t comfortable leaving them sitting under the tree more than a couple of hours. Also, once opened, they had to go back into my refrigerator so . . . that was a bit of a pain. Not to mention my oldest brother couldn’t get away for Christmas so . . . I have no idea when I’ll see him to give him his gift. We might just have to eat his and send him another directly.

For NYE we went to my favorite restaurant up here with my sister and her husband and had a nice dinner. The hostess brought some crayons to our table and . . . we had a good time with that. The drawings got a little . . . off . . . after a bit and we had to scribble a bunch of stuff out before we left otherwise, we’d probably never be allowed back. After dinner we sat in the bar and listened to a good jazz band for a bit and then headed home. We got home about 10 minutes before midnight so we cracked open a bottle of champagne, toasted the new year, gabbed a bit and then hit the hay.

New year’s day we got up, played liar’s dice for a bit and then went for a long hike. After the hike we made dinner (seafood stew), ate and then hit the casinos for a couple of hours. I went in with $200 and came out with $80 so . . . I figure that’s not too bad. I play the penny slots and won a couple hundred dollars but put it back in.

Got up this morning and had waffles and then went for another hike. After the hike and warming back up, my sis and her hub packed up and headed off.

All of the weather services are saying that we have a blizzard coming starting tomorrow and getting worse on Friday and Saturday and tapering off on Sunday. They’re saying that we’ll get 12 feet or more of snow. That will be nice as long as we have power (we still haven’t gotten around to putting in the back up generator). I should head into town tomorrow and stock up on food and such.

On that note, I’m gonna wrap up and go figure out what I need to stock up on.

Hope 2008 brings you all health, happiness, and love.