Our poor kitties get the brunt of holiday wrath

Hello from rainy Wisconsin!

Christmas vacation is flying by fast! Both Becky and I have been off work since last Wednesday, which has for the most part been filled with delicious food, tons of time with both of our families, and relaxation. For Becky, this is "holiday break," as her work closes for the time period, and for me it's vacation, as my work does not. Amazingly enough though, I might end up using only one vacation day for the whole thing, between holidays, bonus days in lieu of 2011 raises (bleh), comp time, and a fortuitously placed snow day. Although I'm sad to have missed the snow disaster of the decade in New York City (which is pretty pathetic from the perspective of our Midwestern roots), I'm also quite happy to have missed it.

The brunt of the impact of the snow on us was born by our poor kitties. As we nestled in to our plastic Amtrak waiting area seats at Penn Station, waiting for the train to take us away to holiday wonderment, Becky pulled the envelope with the keys for our cat sitter out of her purse. We frantically decided to mail the keys to the sitter, figuring at worst that the cats would be one day late on their food. The keys literally needed to travel one mile, starting from one of the most major post offices in the country. A snowstorm intervened. By Tuesday night she still had not received the keys. As Becky frantically googled for bus tickets home, my parents suggested FedEx. We made it to a FedEx shipping depot five minutes before they closed and paid too much money to overnight a second set of keys to the cat sitter. Guaranteed by 10:30am the next day. Right. But only on days that are at least 96 hours from the last snowflake falling from the sky. By Wednesday mid-afternoon there was still no sign of either set of keys. Thankfully both finally arrived that early evening and she was able to get in (as Becky and I were boarding a flight across the country). The cat sitter reported back that poor Piccadilly had a gift bag around her neck that she needed to cut off. Our poor kitties!! Hopefully their eventful vacation is over.

Tis the Season to be Jolly

Another weekend recap, oh joy for you! And this one is not even a week delayed! I fear that successful blogs should probably have more content than a typical weekend at our house, but I guess one of the magical things about having your own blog (or sharing one with your wife) is that you get to dictate the content.

Friday we made a third attempt at the Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson lottery. And apparently we are unlucky, so for the third time we did not win. This time (unlike at the second attempt) we were armed with enough cash to buy lottery loser tickets. There's only an hour in between the lottery at the show so our dinner options were limited. We picked Shake Shack, largely because they're offering peanut butter hot chocolate. As a bonus the flavor of the day turned out to be candy cane crunch.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was a good time and definitely worth seeing, but a little more... emo? random? something? than I expected. Pretty much I thought I was going to adore it, since it's one of those liberal-message-rock-musical-cult-following kinds of shows. The theater was totally decorated in red Christmas lights and chandeliers and stuffed animal heads - more than I've seen before (and we've seen a fair amount of Broadway in the last 4 years!) The songs were fun, but nothing I'm still humming now, although I'll probably listen on iTunes and consider buying a few. I was actually surprised that it seemed to be commenting just as much on Barack Obama as on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, but I guess that's the liberal mood right now too.

We then headed uptown to join four somewhat inebriated high school teachers at a holiday party. Cocktail franks, a few drinks, and leftover birthday cake from Billy's bakery were enjoyed by all.

On Saturday our friend Stephanie and her adorable two-year-old daughter joined us in New Jersey. We cooked stuffed shells and hung out and introduced our toddler friend to the joys of decorating cut out cookies. The specimens photodocumented here are my creations, not hers!
Our cat, Cricket, took advantage of our focus on cookies, and decided that the stroller was a great place to take an afternoon nap. Our other cat, Piccadilly, was busy cowering in the bedroom. Gaining a little human sibling someday in the future is going to be rough on her, I think! Cricket may adapt better:

We helped Stephanie navigate the bus back to the city and ended up visiting the Rockefeller Center tree with them, since I missed it last weekend. Apparently we were not the only ones who had this thought - the crowd was crushing. Becky and I played bouncers for the stroller (although of course the biggest risk was probably one of us getting run over by someone else's renegade stroller).

When we'd had our fill of crowd we got some dinner at Five Guys. Yum. And now this blogging effort is making me realize we need to eat out less and eat some real food! Becky and I split off from Stephanie and daughter and revisited Columbus Circle. Still just as magical as previously advertised!

Sunday we stuck around home, cooking, cleaning, and watching movies. Thanks for making homemade rolls, Becky. I'm counting down the days to Christmas vacation! (And yes, Sean, I still need homemade rolls then even though I got some today!) We're now settled in with the ridiculously cheesy yet eternally beloved Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Happy Weekend to All, and to All a Good Night.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Last weekend was filled with all kinds of holiday festivities. Becky's mom came to visit us from Wisconsin to enjoy New Yorky Christmas goodness! Sometimes New York can be really obnoxious, but it really is a magical place to be at Christmas time. On Saturday Becky and her mom hit up Christmas markets at Bryant Park and Grand Central, viewed the Macy's windows and the Rockefeller Center tree, and visited the Bronx Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show. Becky and I also went last year, and learned that we probably would have gone much sooner if we had realized it was in fact not really about trains at all. There's an electric train that runs through it all, but the main attraction is all sorts of New York buildings rendered in natural materials.

Unfortunately I missed all of this (and therefore am going to make Becky re-do much of it), but fortunately it was for a good cause. Every year my work has a holiday party on a Saturday in December for all of the families we work with. We work really hard to decorate the gym, and then we have food and music and raffle prizes and of course Santa! It's a lot of work, but it's also fun to see the families in a more relaxed atmosphere and just have fun. I can't post pictures of the families since I don't want to get fired for not protecting people's privacy or anything, but here's a view of the gym before any of the clients arrived.
Afterwords we met up at Columbus Circle to shop the market (although I was running a little late and missed most of this) and view the magic. A few years ago Becky declared that walking through the Shops at Columbus Circle at Christmastime made her feel like she's in a movie, and even though I laughed at her at the time I actually have to totally agree. It's the quintessential mall-at-Christmas, with colorful flashing lights and a cheery holiday soundtrack, and sometimes even a sprinkling of fake snow.
We then enjoyed dinner at Acqua, an Italian restaurant we'd never tried before, and headed home to collapse.

Sunday morning dreary and early we geared ourselves up for a 9 am performance of The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Apparently it is so popular that on peak weekends they pack six performances into a day. On principle we pretty much refuse to pay full price for theater and we could only find a good coupon for early morning or late evening, so 9am won out. The weather gods decided to pour rain. As a Midwesterner, rain in winter causes a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. But here on the East Coast, rain is known as a normal, if unpleasant, wintertime hazard. Standing on the street in New Jersey waiting for a bus while sheets of rain pour from the sky and 40 mph gusts of wind whip your umbrella around is a distinctly un-Christmasy way to start a day of holiday goodness. By the time we got to Radio City we were more than ready for some hot chocolate. Thankfully, they anticipated our needs and had a stand all set up. I asked Becky if she wanted some, and she jokingly asked if we could buy it and then take it to the bar and spike it. Why yes, in fact the hot chocolate bar will do that for you! Hot chocolate, caramel liquor shots, and fresh whipped cream quickly erased any memory of the out of doors. Our orchestra seats absolutely rocked and the show was full of Christmas wonder.

Next we braved the still-wet out-of-doors for much too long, in order to experience all the deliciousness that Sarabeth's has to offer. Sadly by the time we got seated they were no longer serving the Big Bad Wolf Porridge (or any of the other lesser porridges), but crisp potato waffles with chicken apple breakfast sausages can make up for pretty much anything. Seriously, those things are delicious. And I recently learned that they are not on the menu at Sarabeth's Central Park South location. Isn't that disappointing and odd?

By this time we were a wet and generally exhausted, so we returned to the Jerz for relaxing and Christmas cookie baking. This is Becky's yearly obsession, so perhaps she will regale you with tales from the kitchen. Let's just say, in one afternoon I think she finished off five varieties. Yum.

Deck the Halls!

As you are probably aware, last weekend was Thanksgiving. Which, in our world, meant 35lbs of delicious heritage turkey:

Okay, it actually also included a drive to Massachusetts, lots of other delicious food, Harry Potter 7 Part 1, and a fun weekend with our nephews. The only downside really was that Jen was on-call and ended up spending entirely too much time at the hospital and not enough time at home entertaining us. Oh, and the drive. I love spending time with my sister and her family, but I swear the drive to MA gets longer everytime we do it.

We bought super cute onesies for the boys for early Christmas presents (to us?). We maybe had to run around to about 4 stores to get these in the right sizes. I'm sure they actually want much more for Christmas than their aunties, but it's a nice thought anyways!


And here are some solo pictures of the little guys. I cannot believe how quickly they are growing into little boys. They both have gotten very in to clapping, as you can see from this action shot of Matthew:

And Thomas is a little cutie:

Someday I'll be a mommy blogger :) but apparently I'm trying my hand at being an auntie blogger for now... Guess I'm making up for my too busy sister's non-blogging. :) Hi Jen!

While we were in MA the town that my family lives in did their annual arresting of Santa:

Yes, they drive all around town with Santa and a police escort with blaring sirens. Way to kick the season off right.

This weekend we're at home, gearing up for the Christmas season. Becky's mom is coming to visit next weekend to participate in some New York City style Christmas fun (where Santa never gets arrested!), so this weekend was our opportunity to Christmas-ify the apartment.

Ode to Swiss Veg Med

As we are in the midst of a holiday season, which at least in my world, revolves largely around food, I thought I would share with you one of my favorite holiday dinner/potluck recipes. I suppose it could really be made anytime of year, but it has always stuck in my mind as a holiday food. The food: Swiss Vegetable Medley, or as it has been written on many a holiday shopping list in my family, "Swiss Veg Med".

As you will see, it is a close cousin to the Green Bean Casserole, but I would argue that it is approximately 3000% awesomer. Why?
1. It does not contain green beans.
2. It contains cheese.

Enough said.

Swiss Vegetable Medley
16 oz frozen California blend vegetables, thawed and drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese, divided
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 can (2.8 oz) French fried onions (the cheese flavored ones add extra deliciousness), divided

Preheat oven to 350. Combine vegetables, soup, 1/2 cup cheese, sour cream, pepper, and 1/2 can onion. Pour into greased 1-quart casserole. Cover. Bake for 30 minutes. Top with remaining cheese and onion, then bake uncovered for 5 minutes.

Microwave directions: prepare as above, cook covered on high for 8 minutes. Top with remaining cheese and onion, then cook uncovered for 1 minute or until cheese melts.

For the record, part of the beauty of this recipe is that it is very, very flexible. And you can't screw it up, even when you screw it up. It's flexible even by casserole standards, which are pretty darn flexible to start with. For example, when I made this for Thanksgiving dinner while living in London, I couldn't find fried onions, so I substituted crushed Ritz crackers on top. I also had a fun time trying to track down "Swiss" cheese at the supermarket. My sheltered Wisconsin self didn't know that there were multiple varieties of cheese made in Swizerland and that they all had different names, but fortunately a kind staff member in the study abroad office steered me toward gruyere.

When I made this for Christmas dinner while traveling in Austria, there was no cream of mushroom soup to be found. Extra sour cream and some chopped mushrooms seemed to do the trick. I have no recollection of what vegetable blends I ended up using in each of these countries, as I very much doubt that I was able to find a bag of carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. And yes, I have actually tried the microwave directions, when I made this for an office potluck a few years ago. What can I say, this dish and I have a history!

Tonight's version of it may be the most interesting yet: it's pretty much impossible to find pre-shredded Swiss/gruyere around here, and I can't seem to buy the blocks in small enough quantity that I use up the rest before it goes moldy. So today I'm experimenting with cheddar jack. And I sort of screwed up and added all of it to the mix instead of saving some to sprinkle on top. Oopsy. And we were out of sour cream, so I figured a dash of milk and a little more cheese would do the trick. Fingers crossed!

Finally, I would like to leave you with one lesson: buy the small can of onions. If you buy the 6-oz. can of onions, thinking you will have enough to make this dish twice, you just might find yourself eating half a can of onions while mixing the casserole together. Oopsy again. On second thought, if I'd only had the small can, I might have had to run out and buy more while it was in the oven so that I'd have something to top it with.

I'm the one in the big white dress. No, the other one.

We arrived at the ceremony about 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start, popped out of the limo, and ran inside to freshen up and see our families. The little boys were dressed in their tuxes and the crowd was settling in! Right on time someone let us know that the pianist was starting in on the song we agreed would be the mothers’ entrance. We realized in this moment that we wanted to delay a little, to give people time to get settled. But it was just like it was all in motion and there was no stopping it…and so we forged ahead.

I hardly remember the ceremony itself, which I suppose is why people advocate getting a wedding video. We did have a friend video informally, so hopefully that will be enough for us. Pretty much I think it went exactly according to plan. We realized at the rehearsal that the two of us and the minister were the only ones who had any idea what was in the ceremony, which was kind of accidental fun. Meagan’s rendition of Gandhi/Buddha was lovely, the benediction worked great from the back as we had chosen at the rehearsal, and oddly people weren’t too squished in the church. I still haven’t quite figured out if a lot of people were standing at the back or if people skipped the ceremony or what exactly happened to make that work, but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. I was a little sad that we ended up missing the postlude (in addition to the prelude, but we’d talked about expecting that). It’s strange to put time and effort into choosing things that you don’t see or hear!

We did the whole receiving line thing, which was a bit long, but was actually nice to be able to see all of the faces that we’d both been avoiding looking at in the church (it’s really weird to stand up in front of everybody!) Then we headed outside for some outdoor formal pictures. Other people complained about being cold, so I guess the fact that I was not is testament to a combination of the unseasonably warm November weather and the adrenaline. Not to mention the excessively heavy big white dress (side note: I have no idea how people get married in the summer. I would die of heatstroke.)



The limo ride back to the mansion was much more relaxed and jovial. We cracked open the Asti and the string cheese. Yum.

When we arrived we greeted a few people and then ran upstairs to freshen and fluff. A lovely friend brought up a plate of appetizers. We returned downstairs and mingled until dinner. As we were being called to the tables I complained (somewhat bitterly, no shame here!) to my mom about having not been able to taste the spanakopita-type appetizer. The amazing coordinator at the mansion overheard me, and appeared at the head table a few minutes later with a whole plate of them!

After sitting down to dinner for a while someone realized that we did not have a centerpiece at the head table. We had planned to use our bouquets for the centerpiece… which meant that the bouquets were busy cruising around Minneapolis in the trunk of the limo we had dismissed for the evening. Winning major customer service points again, the mansion coordinator apparently managed to track them down for us and before we hardly even knew it we were reunited with our bouquets.

Our fathers, maids of honor, and Miss Becky herself all gave loving toasts. I still can’t quite believe Becky let me stand by my declaration that I didn’t want to talk, but if I say that too much she’ll start to think I owe her one or something! The food was delicious. At the urging of my sister, Becky and I attempted to circulate and socialize in between the courses. This turned out to be a good thing, but we started too late and did an unfortunate job of pacing ourselves, which sadly meant that we didn’t have time to make it to all the tables – in particular the tables where some of our young friends were sitting. I think one big regret that we both have is that we weren’t able to spend more time talking to some of our younger friends who traveled to the wedding and who we don’t get to see very often. Overall I think we did pretty well for two introverts. But, between all of the things we were juggling and the fact that several people ended up leaving earlier than we expected we really missed out on a few, which does make us sad. (Yes, we’ve talked about this ad nauseum, so I can definitely speak for Becky too.)

They forced us (hehe) to cut into our gorgeous cake, and we fed each other a few bites of the pumpkin layer. It turned out to be the majority of the wedding cake I ended up eating, because we were so busy. Becky’s cousin’s four year old daughter was our most attentive guest, as she had apparently been drooling over the cake all evening. Her mom also brought her up to us at one point because she wanted to share with us her adorable observation that “I have the same dress as you.” Mine cost more, kiddo! Seriously though, it was a little trippy to be (one of) the one (s) in a big white dress being idolized by a kid in the princess stage of development.

And then there was dancing. And more dancing. As mentioned earlier, people cleared out a little earlier than we expected, but a decent group stayed and danced until the end. We had a lot of fun rocking out to a pretty eclectic mix of music – including John Denver’s Thank God I’m A Country Boy – which was the one song all evening that caused Becky’s sisters to come RUNNING to the dance floor.

We had planned to leave before the end and have a send off with bubbles. My mom had painstakingly tied personalized ribbons around them for us, even. But it just didn’t really fit into the evening. Casualty of the dance, I suppose.

The next morning we re-grouped at my parents’ house for quiche and the best chocolate cheesecake ever (plus some other food, including birthday cake in honor of Becky’s sister Jenny). We opened gifts and generally enjoyed the afterglow. And then finally, later than expected, we jetted down to Hastings for two much needed decompression days. That’ll probably be another post too, just what you always wanted!

The new Mrs.(s)

This blogging thing is more complicated than it looks! Somehow time keeps getting away from me…

We had a wedding! And a rehearsal dinner and a brunch and minimoon and all the fuss and festivities that surround all of those things. I can hardly believe it’s actually over. Even afterwards I kept waking up in the night thinking it was still coming and thinking of things that I needed to make sure to do or bring or make sure happened. And then I would remember, oh yeah, it’s over. There’s nothing more that can be changed, it is over.

And it really was amazing and lovely and beautiful and all of that, but it went by so incredibly fast. Everyone said it would, but I guess I didn’t really believe it. Going in to Friday the only major project left was the childhood picture slideshow, plus a lot of general organizing and finishing touches for other projects. We went to a local nail salon with our mothers and my sister and Merry to have some spa time, and somehow a quick mani/pedi appointment turned into over three hours. Intense anxiety over the time crunch pretty much started there and didn’t end until after the reception was over.

Becky and I were almost half an hour late to the rehearsal, and then afterwards still needed to spend time in the car frantically finishing up thank you notes for all of our amazing attendants and other participants, which we gave out at the dinner. I felt sad at the time to miss out on the beginning of the dinner, but in retrospect we still had plenty of time at the restaurant. Because, of course, nothing starts without the brides!
After dinner Becky headed to the hotel with her family and I toted Becky’s computer back to my family’s home to work on our still unfinished slideshow. Jen and I stayed up as late as we could manage selecting and ordering pictures, and then resolved to finish in the morning.

The morning… was just a whirlwind. The hair stylist came a few minutes early, while Merry was a few minutes late, and we were more than a few minutes late in getting Sean and the babies out of the house. My family was our typical chaotic selves and we all ran around frantically while Matthew and Thomas threw porridge from their high chairs. I packed while I waited for Becky’s dad to come over with the computer power cord we neglected to trade the night before, and then once it arrived worked on the slideshow while Merry and Jen got their hair done. The two of them then took over the project while I got mine done. My one regret is that we didn’t get more pictures in all of this chaos, particularly of Jen and Merry’s hair being done. I think I checked and double checked that I had everything in my getting ready/overnight bag at least a dozen times.

We headed to the mansion a bit late, of course, only to arrive at exactly the same time as Becky and her family. The staff had started setting up the tables, the cake had been delivered, and everything looked so incredibly beautiful. And of course, as Becky already noted, the weather was absolutely the best November in Minnesota weather we possibly could have hoped to have.

Getting dressed and make-up’ed proceeded to take much longer than expected, interrupted only by a small snafu in which the florist misunderstood our order of “trailing ribbons” for the bouquets. (She had the ribbon sticking out from the bouquets, but only about 8 stubby inches!) Unfortunately she didn’t have the ribbons with her, but she took off as quickly as she could and drove home and made it back in time to vastly improve them before we needed to start pictures. We resumed trying to decode the mysteries of over-priced make-up and corset-backed wedding dresses until we were finally ready for pictures.

We sort of frantically packed what Becky and I had envisioned as an hour and a half of pictures into about fourty five minutes. During a round of the pictures Jen and Merry took over finishing the slideshow. And then the limo showed up and whisked us away to the ceremony!

And this post is getting ridiculously long, so we'll end with a To Be Continued!

Phew!

Well, after months and months of planning, followed by a few weeks of crazy planning, followed by a couple of days that I can only call sheer madness, our wedding came and went. And it was lovely. So many of our wonderful friends and family members pitched in to help make everything happen. Even the weather smiled on us--57 degrees and sunny is better than we could have reasonably hoped for on a November day in Minnesota!

The timing worked out, the ceremony was beautiful, the decorations and details all got finished and were gorgeous, the food was delicious, the cake and flowers were pretty, and we danced the night away. In short: it was incredible. But it went by so fast, and I still can't quite believe it's over, much less digest everything in a way that I can write about it. So for now, I'll leave you with a few pictures that we've seen so far. Since Carrie and I didn't have our cameras that day, we're left to rely on the pictures of our friends and families (hint: if you have pictures from our wedding, please please please email them to me!) while we wait for the full set from the photographers. Here's my favorite picture from our first dance (snagged by my sister):

For more fantastic photography, check out pictures from our dear friend Jen and a preview from Becca Dilley, our amazing photographer.

Legal Wedding Photos

Here we are at the town hall applying for the license!


And here are the beautiful red and purple flowers my mom sent us!


This is the minister signing off on us!


Us with our certificate!


Becky's fear factor battle scars!


And lastly, me with our guests! Sadly Becky took the picture so she's not featured.


There are other pictures with Becky and I during the ceremony, but they are on Jen's camera and therefore I still don't have them. After almost exactly a month, this is what you're getting. :)

The legal ceremony

NOTE: I wrote this last Friday before we left for MN. I wanted to at least finally get it up, even if I can't add anything else right now. I was going to throw some pictures in here, but unfortunately I've realized they're not on my computer. So for now at least, words it is.

Wow, it’s been way too long since either of us last blogged. The unfortunate thing about blogging is that it takes time, and therefore when less is going on in your life you’re more likely to blog, and when things are happening you’re too busy to blog. Or maybe that’s just us.

The wedding is coming at us fast and furious now. I can’t believe we never posted about the legal ceremony. In fact, we’ve hardly even provided pictures of it to our families (let alone the video!). Overall the farther we get from it the more unreal it seems. We’ve jokingly referred to each other as “wif-ancée” since none of the other terms seem to apply to technically married people who are frantically planning a wedding. We also contemplated changing our relationship status on facebook to “it’s complicated” which seemed appropriate, but also, well, complicated.

We had a nice little ceremony at a UU church near my sister’s house in Massachusetts. It was just the two of us, the minister, my sister and brother-in-law, my nephews, and the wild turkeys. It was unexpectedly sunny and in the 80’s and we did the ceremony outside in a stone labyrinth in the woods beside the church.

And I’m apparently already seeing it with rose-colored glasses because I nearly forgot to tell you about the killer mosquitoes and the hand-food-mouth disease. Thursday afternoon and evening I was absolutely freezing at work and then sitting in class. I thought it was just that the weather was changing, until I got home at about 11pm (we were supposed to leave at midnight to drive to MA) and decided to take my temperature. It was 102 degrees. I popped some Advil, deliriously finished packing, and then we decided to instead sleep and head out early in the morning. I never want to hear “It’s 4:44, make a wish!” again. By Saturday I had all kinds of weird little bumps on my fingers and the inside of my mouth. Just what everybody wants while they’re getting married!

As for the mosquitoes… well, suffice it to say that I do not react to mosquitoes, whereas Becky practically gets hives. Apparently that type of reactivity does not mesh with a strapless dress in the woods. Becky described it as “marriage ceremony meets Fear Factor.” She did amazingly well at not flinching too much and at the end we all marveled at her spotted arms and legs and back. Jen was happy that she went forward with the long pants and long sleeves on her sons, despite the 80+ degree weather.

Afterwards we dropped the babies off with a babysitter and the four of us headed in to Boston for an absolutely amazingly delicious steak dinner. I got to try Kobe beef for the first time, and it was ssooo smooth and delicious. I approve highly of eating cows that lived better than I do. Steak tartar, pesto risotto, hashbrowns, champagne, and specialty desserts were also enjoyed. Our first reception dinner is a lot for the second one to compete with!

This weekend we’re gearing up for the last of the grand planning trips to Minnesota. This time Jen and Matthew and Becky’s aunt will be joining us, in addition to both of our moms. They’re coming along to help but also because we’re having a shower!

I am resolving to get back to blogging before the shower is ancient history too, but I don’t really anticipate things will calm down in the next few weeks so we’ll see how that goes. I will try!