Christmas

The whole Christmas experience was pretty good up until mid-afternoon on Christmas Day. Ross's parents and Meredith visited last weekend and most of this week (they were supposed to leave on Wednesday morning but -- surprise! -- bad weather in late December makes it a bad idea to make a 20-hour drive and they didn't leave until Friday). We ate a lot of delicious food, went skiing, exchanged gifts, and spent some quality family time together.

Ross and I enjoyed our first Christmas morning together. We made pancakes and bacon (as well as pot roast for dinner), opened our presents, and played Super Mario Brothers Wii which he gave me, and somehow we managed to spend about 5 hours doing those things. It was a lovely morning/early afternoon.

I always get bored on Christmas afternoon. I wanted to go ice skating, but it turns out that there are hardly any skating rinks less than half an hour away from us, and none of those were open. It worked out that we didn't go skating, though, because I developed a killer sore throat and fever and spent the late afternoon and evening in bed feeling like crap. After sleeping for about 11 hours, I woke up this morning to a much less sore throat but the added bonus of inner ear pain.

Menu Plan

I didn't do my 5-kilometer run yesterday. But I did make a meal plan! Here's what we're having this week:

MONDAY: brats (we were going to have sweet potato fries and salad too, but we didn't make it to the grocery store until today)
TUESDAY: two-bean tamale pie
WEDNESDAY: curried potatoes
THURSDAY: teriyaki salmon over pasta
FRIDAY: pizza
WEEKEND: leftovers

And as usual, we always eat spinach salad with supper.

Menu Plan Monday is sponsored by the blog I'm An Organizing Junkie:

Holidays!

For the fourth year, I spent Thanksgiving here:

It's the Schug House Inn, a bed and breakfast in the tiny little Swiss-themed town of Berne, IN. Ross's extended family spends their Thanksgiving weekend there, chatting, playing, doing puzzles, and of course eating lots of wonderful food. As a new member of their family, this tradition has been such a blessing -- it's provided a chance to get to know Ross's aunts, uncles, and cousins in a way I wouldn't otherwise.

These are some of Ross's cousins. Have I mentioned that I love my in-laws?








And now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time for Christmas: