Brothers

I’m spending the day with two sets of brothers.

The brothers are currently playing an X-Men video game. I opted to take pictures of them rather than show off my video game skills.

I bet you can guess which brothers belong to which set.

From the left, we have G’s younger brother Tushar, and in the blue is Anthony. Anthony is Paul’s younger brother. Paul’s the one in the yellow. Gaurav and Paul have been great friends since college. And their younger brothers, Tushar and Anthony, have also been great friends since college. It’s a nice situation.

Boys are good at games.

Younger brothers.

Older brothers.

They exchanged some presents.

Pretty exciting!

The line between family and friends is really blurred with these boys. It’s so special to be surrounded by such awesome, fun, funny people who care about one another so much.

Brotherly love.

Family Pizza Night

Yesterday was the last day at my parents’ house! It was really fun to visit them for such a nice long time and I was sad to leave this morning. We’re staying with G’s family for a few days now before spending New Years in Ann Arbor and then going back to Seattle.

For our last dinner at my parents’ house, we made pizza!

Making pizza with family and friends is one of my favorite things to do. And, my Dad worked at a pizza place a million years ago (when he was in college) so he can throw the dough and spin it just right. I made the dough, using this recipe, doubled, and we chopped up peppers, onions, tomatoes, and spinach for toppings.

We had some dough tossing tutorials.

G got the hang of it in no time. Total pizza pro.

Pretty excited about his new skill.

I was not as adept at dough handling. I put some holes in the crust. Fortunately my more professional pizza making family helped fix my problems.

Our first pizza had a thin crust and was delicious.

Our second pizza was thicker and cheesier. And also delicious.

The third pizza had pepperoni on it and was the exclusive property of my sister and her friends.

Delicious and fun family time.

After dinner I won Trivial Pursuit. Yes!

Icy Walk

The day after Christmas was lovely.

Arctic wonderland.

G drove up to my parents’ house yesterday. It was nice to see him! It’s been awhile.

We went for a late afternoon walk along the frozen lake.

After freezing our toes out on the ice, we headed to a holiday party with my parents. I ate a lot of cheese and crackers.

After the holiday party, we opened some more presents and laughed at these goofy girls.

Or maybe they’re laughing at us.

Probably.

And much later in the evening, G and Jeffrey and I headed to the casino with some other friends. G won $20!

We used our winnings to buy a late night breakfast at the Truck Stop.

A pretty good day!

Merry Christmas

Merry merry to you and yours!

We woke up late to a lovely, snowy Christmas morning.

Our stockings were much too heavy to hang over the fireplace. They were quite laden with candy and Red Bull cans.

And so many presents! What a lucky little family we are.

Cell phone wrapping paper – a sign of what’s inside?

Yep – a cell phone (with some advice) for Grace!

She was pretty happy.

She also got a backpack – gotta get the kid ready for college next year.

Even Louie the dog got some Christmas presents.

And I was lucky enough to get some great yoga and running clothes. Nice workout clothes really help motivate me to workout. 🙂

After present opening we had some tasty cinnamon rolls.

Dad hands. I come by my prematurely aged hands honest.

Such a merry morning. And now my Mom is roasting a giant hunk of meat and a bunch of vegetables for me.

I might have opened the champagne.

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas. Hug your families. Eat some candy. Drink some champagne.

Christmas Eve

We had a beautiful Christmas Eve dinner.

There were cocktail weenies, shrimp, artichoke dip, chicken wings and roasted root vegetables.

Guess what dish I made?

My mother always makes lovely appetizers for Christmas Eve dinner.

We also had a lot of champagne.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney.

The stockings are hung to the side of the woodstove. Otherwise they might catch fire.

After dinner, we wrapped presents. We started running low on ribbons and had to improvise but I think we came up with some good solutions.

It’s really wonderful to be with my family on Christmas. They’re wonderful.

I miss this guy though.

But I’ll get to spend the day after Christmas with him soon enough.

Merry Christmas to you and to all your loved ones. Enjoy the holiday.

❤

Running Through The Hometown

It’s a pretty quiet day around my parents’ house today.

So I decided to go for a run.

I felt pretty good today, partially because I’ve taken a break from running this week. Monday and Tuesday I did P90X Plyometrics, and I took yesterday off to Christmas shop. Which is kind of like exercise in it’s own way.

SO, my run turned into a long one! 12.31 miles!

It was a really great run. Part of the time I was running on deserted country roads, looking at Lake Michigan. And then I ran through downtown.

I borrowed my sister’s windproof North Face jacket and stayed toasty warm.

Maybe not toasty. But not frozen.

When I came home I ate a mountain of brussels sprouts and a black bean burger. Very satisfactory.

And now Caroline is headed over with a bottle of wine in her purse. Love.

Last Minute Shopping

We went last minute Christmas shopping in Petoskey today.

Petoskey’s the place to go if you live in the Eastern UP and need something that doesn’t come from Walmart.

They have a cute bookstore and a fancy food store. Those are the kinds of gifts I get people.

In addition to doing some last minute shopping, I stopped by my friend Kate’s house! She and I worked together when I was in high school and I haven’t see her since! She’s spent the last few years living in Uganda, and she has a darling family. Her sons are WAY too cute.

After visiting Kate, we visited the Red Cross. My Dad works at a hospital, and the ladies that work at the Red Cross deserve some appreciation. So we brought them some candy!

It’s important to appreciate those who do great things for our communities!

Human blood platelets!

After the human blood platelets, we went shopping downtown.

We went to a health food store.

You can get a lot of surprising things at Toad Hall.

I’m glad I got all my holiday shopping done!

There’s some good stuff just waiting to be wrapped!

Happy Holidays.