Where to start?

I know that I haven't been very good at keeping up with the fast-paced Christmas activities, but here is my attempt at catching up a little...

So, after the Chicago train ride, we spent the following weekend at various holiday parties. I had already mentioned Devin's ugly sweater party... We also attend my brother and his wife's annual Christmas party and every year it proves to be a great time. Unfortunately, it was the same night as the big snow storm! We finally left the county at about midnight and all was going well on the roads... until we got almost home... On Hampton, the road dips a little and veers to the left... Well, the car didn't go left and we ended up on the sidewalk after mowing over two gas poles (?)... A cop driving by noticed our situation and stopped to offer a little assistance as well as call the gas company. It wasn't until we had the Laclede Gas guys and Ian combined with some creative macgyver there that we could get the car back on the road.

The following weekend was the much awaited Cookie Baking party. Being the 5th year, we have gotten really good at efficiency! 8 bakers were complete by about 10pm, I think!








The Christmas holiday was filled with lots of good food, wonderful family, and great gifts! On Christmas Eve, we went over to my Mom and Dad's. Everything was delicious and the boys were really cute. Drew wanted to play with Jackson's presents, and Jackson wanted Drew's!








On Christmas day, Matt and I woke up to open our own presents... I got a new board game and a roll out shelf for the pantry and Matt got the Bourne Ultimatum and glass shelves for his bar downstairs. Denver and Malibu enjoyed their gifts as well. After that, we headed over to the Binning house. We opened the enormous pile of gifts and had fun playing games until dinner was served. All in all it was a wonderful (and exhausting) holiday!

Quick Update

Just wanted to take a minute to tell everyone about the awesome Christmas party we attended last night. One of the old Resto gals and her husband hosted an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. I really wish I had remembered my camera because there were some great outfits. At one point, one of the very drunk gentlemen asked Devin to accompany him on piano while he sang Christmas Carols... Keep in mind he was also wearing an outlandishly decorated sombrero... It was really wonderful to see Devin and Dave (an old manager from Resto). Hopefully we can put a reunion together February-ish for the whole gang to get together!

The Christmas Spirit

As many of you know, as an early Christmas present, my in-laws paid our way on an antique rail car made in the 50s to Chicago and back on Saturday. Being that I am sick and Matt had thrown out his back the day before, we bundled up, made the best of it and had a great time in the windy city.

The train ride was not exactly what we had envisioned, however, we had first class treatment. There were only 44 seats in the rail car, which meant for a very comfortable ride (there were footrests and enough head room to stand at your seat!) but the car didn't look very old at all. Our train boarded at 4am, so Matt and I did our best to get some additional shut eye before the sun rose. At 6:30am, the volunteer staff served a "continental breakfast." So, I'm thinking bagels and cereal... Oh no! We were served what seemed like 14 courses from hard boiled eggs and little smokies, to yogurt and string cheese! It certainly was a pleasant start to our day... We arrived in Chicago at about 10:30am, I think, and decided to check out the shopping that was available. Without having done much pre-planning, the best we could figure was to head to the Magnificent Mile. It felt like quite a long walk in the bitter cold, so we pushed through the big revolving doors of the first store of interest we saw! This brought us to Nordstrom's. The best way to describe it is by a mini-mall. It was 4 floors, however, most of the stores are also found in STL. It is the location of the Lego store, though! Matt and I had a great time taking in all that has changed since we were Lego consumers... I didn't realize it at the time, but Santa is kinda obstructed in my picture of the Lego version of Santa and one of his reindeer (I don't recall a red nose!).

After we had thawed a bit, we headed back out in search of some different stores... Unfortunately, we didn't have much success. I guess that STL has come a long way, which is certainly a good thing. We didn't find FAO Schwartz or West Elm, unfortunately, but in our ridiculous attempt to find lunch, we did find the Weber Grill restaurant. It was perfect, short wait (hard to find in downtown Chicago around Christmas) and good food. The cook on grills the size of my kitchen table!

After the late lunch, we ventured towards the Sears Tower. On the way we passed by Marshall Field's with their amazing holiday displays and lots of street performers (the puppet theater was the best). When we got to the tower, the visibility was only 5, so we didn't get the best view, but it was cool to learn about the history of the building as well as see all the lights down below.

Afterwards, we had some time to kill before our train left, so we spent it in the Union Station bar... I know, but given the circumstances, we were lucky to have made it that long!

Our return trip turned out to be rather eventful, though. First a little background. Originally, we were supposed to hitch onto another train leaving later and returning earlier. This was switched to allow more time in Chicago. Well, the train that was supposed to leave at 5:15 for STL was actually stalled on the tracks about 10 minutes from Union Station. It had been there for over 2 hours. Obviously, there was no way to go around the other train, so we sat there while the "Canadians" (don't know if that is a company name or heritage) fixed the other train. The whole ordeal cost us about an hour and a half. So, we actually arrived in STL at 1:30am rather than the planned 12am. Matt and I did decide that luxury train car is the way to travel, though! We hope to make more trips like this in the future...

Another Weekend Update...

Well, I suspect my blogs are going to be kinda like this for awhile (at least through the holidays)... This is a busy time of year, however, I don't think I've ever been as booked as I am this month! Friday night I attended my first "Slumberparty" at a co-workers house. If you don't know of the company- think Tupperware meets Sex in the City. It was a blast laughing and joking around. I know there had been talk of me hosting such an event, and now the timing is perfect since Janelle can get a bonus. With all the pregos, I thought it would be best to see what works for everyone, so please weight in on the poll to the left.

Saturday was filled by xmas shopping in the afternoon and the much anticipated meeting of Julie's new boyfriend! We met up at her friend, Dana's house, and watched the Mizzou game and played Apples to Apples. I won't bore you with all the raunchy details, but I think that we may have scared Josh a little... Well, that's all for now. Talk to you later!

I also finished posting pics on my last blog...