A Missing Gift

There was a gift in the fire place.... From Shawn. It's many days after Christmas now. In fact, the last day of 2013. 

I opened the gift and found a gravy separator and gravy boat... The things I was missing when Shawn helped me make Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanks, Shawnie! Amazing way to end 2013.

Farewell JRo

San Fransisco has called away my Jonathan. He moves away tomorrow. He chose our last dinner together at Dallas BBQ. 

We took advantage of the poor service to do a little photo shoot. He brought me a pink unicorn thay we named SFO. He will live in Jonathan's room in my apartment.

Smiles and sillies. I'll miss you, JRo. See you in San Fransisco... Xxx

Faces with Kian

We spent some time at TNT taking silly selfies. A common occurrence for us. It was fun spending so much time with Kian, always sad to leave, I teared up once, but never cried... Yet...

Sisters

Our big night out to downtown Denver to a tapas bar. 

After 5-6 straight days of spending most of the time in pjs, except to go to the park, we got dressed, did our hair & put makeup on. 

Sisters out before I return to NY.

Exploring Colorado

It was another warm day... We took the kids to Goose Poop Park and carefully avoided stepping in goose poop while we watched them play. 

On the way home we stopped by Bear Creek Lake Park. We have driven past these lakes 50+ times on my visits to Colorado, but we've never been inside. After buying a senseless $7 day pass, we went exploring. Stables, archery, yurts, lakes, playgrounds. Good stuff. I took this photo on the edge of one of the icy lakes at Pelican Point.

It's Warm, Let's Go Outside!

Colorado got to the toasty roasty high of 50 degrees. The kids saw the sun and immediately wanted to run out and walk the dog, go to the park.

Christmas Day

The big event happened and I am exhausted! We all got into bed at 8:30 tonight. 

Loads of gifts, eating, and playing.

We opened gifts at the crack of 8am, had cookie cutter pancakes and turkey bacon & sausage for breakfast. Played with the new toys and games while I prepared dinner.

Cooking. Calls to family. Puzzles. Text messages. Board games. Xbox games. It was a fun, but exhausting day. 

Emailing Santa

The kids set up their rocking chairs in front of the tree & we took a photo to email to Santa. 

Mahala in the pink chair and Kian in the red one so Santa had a reference about whose stuff goes where. 

The tree looked so festive after Santa visited tonight...

Increased Nerd Cred

Our paper and our poster got accepted by the AMIA 2014 summit. Tom wrote to us that it increases our Nerd Cred by a factor of 10. What an exciting academic day for my group!

Caramel Process

We made caramels last night & Amanda and I spent over an hour cutting wax paper, portioning out the candies, and wrapping them...assembly line style.

We finished them up & filled the final space in the cookiepalooza tray. Followed by a day of gift wrap, tv and movies... Productive & relaxing... Hooray for the holidays. 

Colorado Cookiepalooza

We had a terrific time with the children making cookies. 3 different doughs, 4 different cookies (peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter blossoms, cream cheese jam filled, and sugar cookies--yet to be frosted) and caramels (unpictured).

Tent Bed

I'm sleeping in Kian's room... 

That's right, on a twin sized bed, inside of a tent. You're jealous, right?

Holiday Party Day

Tonight was our office holiday party. So many people to see and chit chat with... Totally forgot to take photos.

But did gather most of the team (Janelle is on Vacation, David is helping with the family business and Bess left before the pre-party began.

Royalty in Rep on Broadway

My cousin Lindsey (the theater major) is visiting New York from California. She wanted to see Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart. They are doing this show in rep with No Man's Land. 

I rushed the box office this morning to score balcony box seats for both the matinee and evening performances.

It was a spectacular experience, I enjoyed them both.

Cookie Aftermath

Every year after cookiepalooza is done, I ice all of the remaining cookies with all of the remaining icing and pack them up to go to work. 

After several last minute cancelations, I ended up with a table full of colorfly iced cookies to feed my colleagues. 

Cookiepalooza 2013

Another successful cookiepalooza. Food was noshed, cider was mulled, egg nog and brandy were consumed. Cookies were iced, foodoodled and iced. Talent was showcased. Jokes were told, people visited, met and mingled. Merriment for all.

Palooza Prep

I spent the day getting things prepared for cookiepalooza.

Baking, cooking, cleaning... It's been a lot lf work, but fun stuff.

I hung lights as with trees with candy cane ornaments above the fireplace.  

I made sugar cookies and gingerbread dough, cut them out, baked them, iced some as an experiment. 

Super excited for the party!

Out in the Snow

Jonathan needed some help this morning so I went out in the snow to do him a favor. 

Right as I got to the end of his block, I stopped to take a photo. The snowflakes were so big that they were actually visible through the iPhone camera as they were falling.

Good thing I went out early because it only got worse throughout the day.

Too Frozen for FroYo

Shockingly, no one wants frozen yogurt when it's cold outside... Silly store that opened after the summer was over & staffs the place until 11pm when it's 20 degrees out!

At least it's festive & lights up the block.

Kian's Schoolwork

Andrea sent me a photo of Kian's schoolwork. When I spoke to him this morning he told me I was coming on December 20th. That was only 8 days away!

He's apparently as excited as I am to see him. I am honored to be a part of his schoolwork!

Nutcracker Rouge

Shawn and I went down to the village to see Nutcracker Rouge at the Minneta Theater. It was a burlesque version of the nutcracker ballet. It was very entertaining with good performers. I enjoyed my evening!

SALAD!

There was a bodega/deli a few store fronts down. It closed months ago. So when it started getting rebuilt, it was exciting to see what would to there. It's a Chop't... A choose your ingredient chopped salad place. Fairly standard around NYC. But the amazing part of this one is the 6 foot lit sign announcing the salad. It's a crazy large sign. I'm not sure if you can make out the scale, but below the ginormous sign is the door; a person inside, it's insane. Why does it need to be so big?

Experimental Eye Makeup

I dropped by Rite Aid during yesterday's errands and bought some new eye makeup. 

It was hard to capture the effect like it looked in person, but I made a creepy collage out of the shots I took to send to my sister.

Out in the Snow

I went out to meet Laura and run some errands. It was fun being in the falling snow all bundled up in my puffy coat and scarf. I wasn't cold, but happy that a light snow made it feel like winter (even though it's not quite, yet). 

Last Soup Kitchen of 2013

We had a great turn out at the soup kitchen today. Including people there to volunteer and there to eat. 

We had a lot of delicious dishes to serve, donations to give away. It was a great time and mostly drama free.

Pretty on the Map

The weather has been terrible all over the country this week. Really cold in California, below zero in Colorado, but surprisingly warm here. Now we have terrible rain haunting us.

The radar looks pretty...

Sound of Music Live!

I love the Sound of Music and have been waiting for the live performance since it was announced. I DVR'd it and followed my twitter feed throughout. I was a bit sad how much people hated Carrie Underwood, granted, she isn't Julie Andrews, but this was live, and hey...she wasn't as bad as Russell Crowe in Les Mis!

Hanukkah Party

I went over to Lisa & Eben's place, tonight... They had a party to celebrate the last night of Hanukkah with friends & some family who lives in town. 

It was fun to see 3 Krinskys together, in NY to light the candles. They took some posed photos, but I liked my candid of the Aaron, Lisa and Sarah hug after. I got the menorahs ... one as it was first lit and the other as it had nearly burned out. 

I brought them a gift and I was pretty stoked on my wrapping! Crazy that Hanukkah is finished and it's only the 4th!

It's Official!

I have lived in this apartment for 18 months and *today* the super put my name on the mailbox and on the tenant buzzer list outside. I guess I officially live here now!

Layered Leftovers

I made a version of shepherd's pie from thanksgiving leftovers. Stuffing on the bottom, diced turkey, carrots, celery and onions from the roasting pan, and green bean casserole sautéed together with some stock as the 2nd layer and cheesy mashed potatoes on the top layer.

I made a small 2 cup dish for me, and a square casserole for the office tomorrow. Delicious concoction!

Atlantic City Aquarium

We went to the aquarium before heading out of Atlantic City. My favorite part was the baby ray touch tank, but it was really hard to photograph them, so here are some of others.