Happy Holidays 2009!

It's truly looking like a winter wonderland around here! This is what we've been dealing with this week:

My next-door neighbor's daughter, Claire, built a pretty amazing igloo, supposedly for their cats, but she seems to be enjoying it, too.

It's actually kind of unusual for us to get this much snow this early -- this is more like a February storm. Unfortunately, it's also been butt-freezing cold. Sure does look more Christmas-y, though, and we're really glad to have invested in a new furnace!

I know I said I would take some video of my crazy neighbor's decorating, but when I went over there, she had only done about half of what she did last year, so it wasn't really worth it.

Last night was Candy and Floyd's annual White Elephant party. We managed to divest ourselves of last year's Bob Hope statue, as well as a couple other oddities we had around here. Below are pictures of the bounty we received in return:

I'm constantly amazed at the things people will pay money for.

We also went down to the Zoo Bar to hang out with the BelAirs for a bit, and deliver some Christmas goodies. All in all, a very enjoyable Saturday night.

Miscellaneous Updates

I'm deep in the middle of holiday candy-making, as you can see from the photo below. I found a new recipe (truffles) that I'm trying - Tom says I should make it to the exclusion of all others. I used kahlua in the ones I've made so far, and put chopped up maraschino cherries in half of them. They're amazing! I think I'm going to try another batch with creme de menthe. Oddly enough, the recipe comes from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (the red and white checked one). Of course, using Ghiradelli chocolate doesn't hurt, either.


Hannah's Tony celebrated a birthday, too. Instead of a birthday cake, he got a quiche! Hannah's getting pretty good at crusts.


And of course, there was Thanksgiving. I include this picture because it was so funny. There were several missing cousins at the kids' table, so this was how they solved the problem.


I've been a little worried about crazy holiday decorating neighbor, but she finally turned on her lights tonight. I'll try to sneak over there and shoot some video this weekend so you can get the full effect. I was outside earlier trying to enjoy the electronic music, but there were so many dogs barking I couldn't hear it. You think I'm kidding? Check this out to see.

I'll try to post again this weekend. Just wanted to let you know I'm still around.