Christmas 2009: Part Game Night

Okay, this wasn't really part of Christmas, but a couple of days before the big day we decided to have a little impromptu pre-holiday game night. It was one of those rare nights when Drew and I were both going to be home and didn't have anything planned... or any serious TV to watch... oh how I miss you Biggest Loser!

Game night is very close to the top of my favorite things list! Its right up there with red wine... which I enjoyed a bit too much of and decided to play paparazzi while everyone else played Catch Phrase.

My friends are so pretty:

DeAnna knows the answer:

I have no idea why Melinda and Nick are blue... maybe the camera was in Avatar mode:

Elaine is getting down to business, but it looks like Curtis and Nick are cracking up:

Curtis was a Catch Phrase all-star! Seriously, he was good:

My favorite neighbor:

Favorite part of the evening: During Boys V Girls Catch Phrase the boys got the phrase "Pleased As Punch". The boys had never heard of that phrase but all the girls knew it from my blog tags! I'm pleased as punch that Catch Phrase recognizes my favorite phrase. :)

Thanks to everyone who joined us for Game Night! I look forward to many more in the new year!

Christmas 2009: Part Uno

For Christmas this year my parents asked for a family picture of the four of us. And because my camera isn't acting right, my father-in-law let me borrow their super sweet Canon Rebel to take the family pic with. I was SO excited to try out the fancy camera, but even after tinkering with the settings for quite some time, I went back to the automatic setting because I had no idea what I was doing. If I'm ever fortunate enough to own such a fun and fancy camera I'll have to take a class for sure.

Anyways, Katy came over to take the picture for us... and after several takes, this is what we came up with:

Yes, we're gripping the dogs tightly to keep them in place. But look at Ari's cute tummy spot! It's the reason I picked him... I just love that little spot. :)

Mya, thinking about a delicious Christmas dinner:

My parents and brother came up the weekend before Christmas to celebrate. It was my first time to host Christmas dinner and I was so excited!!! Mostly excited because I could finally bust out my Tiffany's candlesticks. Thanks Grandma!

While I slaved away in the kitchen, everyone else hung out and watched some sporting event on TV while munching on a tasty veggie tray:

Yeah right! You know I put people to work! Our main course was beef tenderloin with a homemade rub. While I love me some meat as much as the next ex-veggie, I'm still a little freaked out by raw meat. So I made the rub (delish!) and Mom did the actual rubbing:

That is a big ol' honking piece of meat!

So how do you know when its done? You have your dad check it with a meat thermometer. These things are all foreign to me, I'm so glad I had my expert chefs around to assist me:

Hey, I did some serious work too:

Someone's got to wear the apron, right?

The meat turned out amazing. I'm not kidding, I would choose this over steak any day.

The recipe (which was really just a rub) was one from Giada that she did for Shape Magazine. So while it was totally delish, it was also a healthy (er) way to prepare the meat.

On the side: roasted Brussels sprouts with hazelnut brown butter:

Brussels Sprouts are so now. I felt like everyone included them in their Thanksgiving menu, so I had to try them. Meh, they taste like cabbage. (Side story: I searched like 10 different stores for raw hazelnuts and finally ended up just using almonds. I was at Target the next day and found hazelnuts when I wasn't even looking for them.)

Mashed Potatoes with roasted garlic:

You can do no wrong with mashed potatoes, but I didn't really roast the garlic long enough so the taste was a bit off. You betcha I still ate them up!

Anti-Pasta Salad courtesy of my mama:

I was in a bit of a tizzy after several of my side dish suggestions were shot down (seriously, pickiest guests ever!) so as I was running around cleaning the house the morning of dinner, Home Made Simple was on TV (I love you TLC!) and they were making Gingered Carrots. I scribbled down the recipe as they prepared it and voila:

Good, but I kind of forgot I'm not a big fan of fresh ginger. It has a wang that I'm not crazy about. I would have totally rather had creamed spinach but was told it would not be popular among the Wichita Boys.

Next up: dog fighting opening gifts!

My parents gave us a painting to hang over the bar... so exciting! Three years into home ownership and we finally have something to put on the wall besides a wedding photo.

The fam showing off some of their loot:

The puppies played tug of war with the ribbon:

I think the first Christmas at the Gibsons was a definite success. Thanks mom, dad, and Josh for coming to Kansas City to celebrate Christmas!

Old Traditions Revisited

Way back in college, one night at the Gamma Phi house, Jana introduced us to the joys of dipping pretzels into chocolate. I've done it every year since. And this week, she reinstated the tradition at her house.

Our awesome spread of goodies, and DeAnna drinking un-organic wine: DeAnna, my bloggy BFF turned real-world friend, asked before hand if it is rude to bring wine to a pregnant person's house. This is why we're friends.

Jana made like a thousand sugar cookies and bought 5 bags of pretzel rods. Matt came home later in the evening and was unimpressed with our progress. He was also unimpressed with Jana's ability to motivate our dipping. Come on Coach!

Kylie and some incredible popular bowl:
I think the large microwave safe bowl is key to pretzel success. You can fit an entire bag of almond bark in there!

The FACS teacher shows us how to mix icing with a toothpick:
Check out my sweet to-go bag:
To be clear, we dipped delicious pretzels on Tuesday. Today is Thursday and my bag of treats is gone. Again, this is why I run.

I asked Jana for a belly shot and she tried to show me her bare tummy. I don't know that the internet is ready for that! Here she is with all of her preggo cuteness:
It's fun to think that next year when we go to Jana's for candy-making she'll be a mommy! Thanks for inviting us over Jana! We've come a long way since the Gamma Phi kitchen! And I promise that next year I'll be a more productive pretzel-dipper!!!

Disney World: Part 2

Finally, right?!

Before I get into part two of our day at the Magic Kingdom, I just want to say that EVERYONE agrees that the Carousel of Progress is a no-go. I'm pretty sure Jana is being paid by Disney to promote it. So if you're planning a trip to Disney and Jana insists you ride the Carousel of Progress, just say no.

Onwards and upwards! We STILL had lots of time to kill before our Fast Pass time to Space Mountain so we went by Mickey's house. Ari would be SO jealous of Pluto's big bone:
We waited in line for a LONG time to meet Mickey! He was out in his very own barn. We took random pictures as we waited in line:
I had to fight off the crazy foreign lady (no offense to foreigners) with her 19 kids who kept trying to cut in front of us! Note to you foreign lady: just because you have a billion kids doesn't mean you get to meet Mickey first. I am usually a pretty easy going person (I hate when people say that about themselves) but not when it comes to line jumpers.

Random family who ended up on my camera:

Mickey & Jamie = BFF: Ummm... Minnie was getting a little too friendly with Drew:
Mickey had to scold her in front of everyone for her overt flirting! After all the non-verbal giant rodent fighting, I have a new FaceBook picture:
Next up: Minnie's house! So, are they married and living separately... or are Mickey and Minnie still just boyfriend/girlfriend?

Anyways, Minnie and I have the same taste in furniture!!! Maybe she has a separate house because Mickey won't let her keep her pretty flowered couch in the front room? Maybe I need a separate house for my couch too. Just a little bit more time left until Space Mountain! We came upon It's A Small World and I remembered Katy saying this was the only ride she'd go on when she was here. I failed to remember that she was 5 when she came.
Not only was it totally slow, and pretty freaky... but Drew and I shared a boat with a couple of gay guys who taught me more about the gay community (via eavesdropping) than I ever cared to know. My world is now a bit smaller.
Penguins with sombreros? Okay...
It is a small world after all... and we all must fear the evil clowns attacking us from the skies:
All in all, It's a Small World bombed bigger than the Carousel of Progress... and with all the "daddy" talk it was far more traumatizing.

But that doesn't matter because it's 5:40! Time to head to Space Mountain!!!

But wait... what do you mean the ride broke down??? Worst. News. Ever.

We just walked around the park without much direction feeling sorry for ourselves. Drew feeling sorry for himself:

The castle changed colors as it got dark:
We stumbled through the 9 zillion gift shops. Drew found a trophy for me. It says "Best Girlfriend". I don't know what he's saying about my wifing skills.
A parade started at 9:00, so everyone started to line the streets. I caught sight of this fellow in Nascar Mickey ears:
The people at Disney are marketing geniuses. You get to the park and everyone is wearing Mickey shirts and ears and jewelry and anything else you can think of. So you feel totally left out if you don't have some. Then you ride these rides and get all pumped up on them and when you exit, you exit into a gift store that matches the ride. So you ride the Space Ranger ride and think its super cool, then you exit into a store that sells all kinds of Space Ranger Mickey Mouse gear. Go to the Presidents exhibit and you'll feel all patriotic and exit into a room full of red white & blue Disney wear to show off your new found love of country. Drew and I must have been the only people who didn't end up with a new wardrobe of mouse gear. And that is because we are extremely practical... and cheap.

Light parade:

Enjoying a lovely Disney night with my favorite person on Earth:After the parade we decided to make one more stop at Space Mountain to see if it was up and running. And... It works! And... the estimated wait is 60 minutes. Our Fast Pass expired hours ago, but we decided to try to sweet talk the ticket gal into letting us in since the ride was broken down during our pass time. She was super nice and let us through!!! We literally ran past hundreds of people waiting in line. We were SO EXCITED!!!

Waiting our turn, Drew was so excited: I was FREAKING OUT:
Did I mention I'm scared as hell of roller coasters??? Here we go:
OMG. It was so fun. I wish I'd taken a picture of the picture taken on the ride. I look hilarious. Hilarious. The guys in front of us were laughing so loud as I let some m-fers fly during the ride. It was scary. Scary. We would have gone again, but now the wait was 75 minutes and we had no fast pass.

We ended the night watching fireworks over the castle. Camera doesn't like to take pictures of fireworks, but it was just fabulous. I felt like I was on Full House: Very best vacation ever. I can't imagine going to Disney with small children... you'd have to have some serious patience. But it was totally fun and wonderful even without kiddos.

In related news, Drew is still in Orlando. After I left the temps sky rocketed to record highs. Awesome. Drew texted me pics of bare feet and palm trees at the hotel pool this weekend. I went outside to text him back pics of our snow covered yard and Ari gave me the perfect photo opp when he decided to take a poo in the snow. Drew says it will be on our Christmas card this year. You can all look forward to receiving that holiday cheer in the mail!

The Happiest Place On Earth: Disney World Part 1

Day 2 in Orlando; still cloudy, but the rain let up just in time for us to go to DISNEY WORLD!!! So so so exciting!

Disney is like the biggest thing ever. I mean, they have their own downtown. We passed all kinds of parks and resorts to get to the Magic Kingdom. And just a note, it is cheaper to park at Disney than at Arrowhead:

Walking through the parking lot to the tram to take us to the train to take us to the park:

I kind of freaked out in the parking lot because everyone was dressed in coats and scarves and boots. It was 50 degrees out. Not ideal weather, but come on people, let's not over-react here. I was also sad when I saw how many people wear matching outfits to Disney. Had I known I would have had matching Mickey shirts made for Drew and I to wear! I'll be much more prepared next time.

Once we finally made it into the park we were greeted with a parade!

Best. Parade. Ever. We weren't the only ones who enjoyed it:

Not only was every single character in the parade; from Mickey to Chip & Dale to Aladdin & Jasmine, but they had real people too. They got to dance and sing and it looked like so much fun!


Okay, had I known this job existed I would have buffed up my dance skills and headed to Florida as soon as I turned 18. Dream job!

THEN they invited all of the spectators to join the parade and dance:

Shake your tail feather:

DISNEY!!!!
We had no real plan so we just kind of wondered around for awhile. I got very excited when I saw my first real life wicked witch:
OMG. She was mean! I told her she was pretty and she responded, "I know." We were like BFFs. We're going to have a slumber party and braid each other's hair and talk about new ways to cast spells on stupid princesses. I mean come on Milificent, pricking your finger on a spindle is SO last century.

Now imagine us standing around waiting for someone to walk by who we feel comfortable asking to take our picture. The first people we asked didn't speak English. Awesome. Then we went through several different photographers before we finally got this pic:

Not perfect, but we take what we get. That sweater? Yeah, I wore it the night before. And the rest of the weekend too. It was the only thing with long sleeves I packed. Who packs long sleeves for Florida??

After this we wondered around TommorowLand and found Space Mountain!!! The wait was over an hour so we got a Fast Pass ticket that tells you a time to come back and you can pass to the front of the line. Our time was 5:40. It was about noon. So... off to kill 6 hours...

I got a text from Jana right as we pulled into the parking lot reminding me that we needed to check out the Carousel of Progress. Luckily it was right down the way from Space Mountain, so it was our first official attraction of the day.

Yeah, didn't really go over so well:

Sorry Jana. We weren't big fans. It started out good, but completely lost us when they showed present day as talking ovens and people wearing virtual reality head sets. It reminded me us of how they portrayed the future in Back to the Future. Good idea, poor execution.

Next we headed through Frontier Land to our first real ride:

Waiting in line:
Going up:
Ummm... Drew took the camera and thought he was really funny with his action shots:
If you've never been on a roller coaster with me, you should know I'm a screamer:
In the seventh grade my dad drove me and my BFF Nicky to Worlds of Fun and on our first ride on the Orient Express she peed her pants laughing so hard at me screaming. Its bad.

We rode some more rides and walked around the park. I took pictures in all the rides that said "no flash photography!" and it drove Drew nuts. But come on! I had to get a picture of Johnny Depp:
We ate lots of Disney food:

And took lots of self portraits:
And I made Drew take lots of pictures of me. Minnie's rose garden:
So lots of the rides are geared toward the kiddos, but we had lots of fun on them too. Like this Toy Story Buzz Light Year ride where you got to shoot aliens:
Then when you are done they tell you what level of space ranger you are. I was like the lowest level of space ranger:
Such a fun afternoon! Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Disney day to find out if we ever get to ride Space Mountain and which famous couple Drew attempted to break up with his charm and good looks.