Ho ho ho!!!!!

We are in Ohio for the holidays!!! It is hard to believe that I haven't been here since last May, and I definitely missed it. There's something about this sign that warms my heart:

We settled in at my parents' house, along with Mark, Liz, Grant, and Corbin - quite the full house! We went to grandma's for Christmas Eve - years ago, we used to do a big dinner, and everyone would be on food overload - now, my grandma does soup and sandwiches, and it's just perfect. Lily loved playing with great-grandma's piano -

And it was great to see Cricket again!! She's doing well, nice and spoiled and enjoying all the squirrels which provide plenty of entertainment for her.

When we got home, the kids snuggled up on the couch to watch a show before bed. Considering the general mayhem generated by Lily and Grant all throughout the day, it was a welcome half hour of stillness and quiet.

Of course, before they went off to bed, the kids left out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer.

Christmas is a lot of fun again with kids who get all caught up in the magic :-) Lily was pretty excited, but threats of Santa only coming while children were sleeping convinced her to go to bed.

Here they are on Christmas morning, waiting at the top of the stairs - we had to make sure everyone was ready with cameras on hand!!!

Not only did Lily get her big red race car, so did Grant!! They were both pretty thrilled, and started driving them right there in the living room.

It took a while to get them interested in their stockings, but eventually they were persuaded...

After breakfast, we proceeded to the rest of the presents!! This year, Lily had the attention span to open all her presents herself, and I had fun watching her.

Lily got a little chest of dress-up clothes, so here she is as "Lily Princess", and Grant got some cool Buckeyes gear:

And, of course, as soon as the adults could be convinced to bundle up and head outside, we tested out the race cars on the open road (or, the quiet, mostly undeveloped cul de sac - don't worry!)

They had a blast and spent the better part of an hour driving around!! My dad tried to set up a little driving course with some cardboard boxes, but apparently it was more fun to just ram the boxes :-)

All in all, a pretty darn good Christmas. It is so nice to be able to spend the whole week with my Mom and Dad. I've got work hanging over my head a bit, but I'm trying to relax and enjoy this time.

I hope you all had a wonderful, happy holiday. Now it's time to start thinking about 2012!!

Dear Santa...

Today I asked Lily to write a "letter" to Santa, to tell him what she wants for Christmas. As I said in a previous blog entry, every time Lily has seen Santa this year she's asked him for a big red race car. But, I thought it would be nice to have her draw it, so I told her to draw it and sign it, and that I'd give it to Santa, just so we could be sure he knows what she wants!!

Here's her Christmas wish, the big red race car:

I took it and told her I'd deliver it personally. We will see very soon if Santa pulls through on Christmas morning!! I have a hunch, though... ;-)

Breaking news.

You will all be immensely excited and relieved to hear, that after several weeks of work....

I finished the 1,500 piece puzzle. Huzzah!!

You can all relax now.

December fun!!

Last weekend, Lily and I had a very busy Saturday. First off, we had Breakfast with Santa at the 503d Military Police Battalion. We headed up to see Santa first thing, and it was lucky we did, because a huge line formed after us. Lily sat in Santa's lap and told him she wants a "big red race car" for Christmas. That's what she's been telling Santa every chance she gets, se we will just have to wait and see if a big red car is under the tree on Christmas morning!!! :-)

She got a bag of little toys, to include this flute, which she just loved!!!

Then we did a cute little craft, where the helper elf painted Lily's foot and hands with brown paint to make a reindeer. Then we stuck eyes on it, and hung it up to dry.

It was to get a little red nose on it once it was dry. It probably would have looked really cute, but we will never know, because I forgot to pick it up before we left. Typical!! Oh well.

We went right from breakfast to a birthday party. It figures - I'm usually wishing we had something to do, and then two events get scheduled the same morning. The party was great, though. The kids did some crafty things, to include making holiday pictures frames:

They also played "stick the bow on Hello Kitty". Here's Lily getting spun around:

Lily actually did the best out of all the kids, and stuck the bow right where it was supposed to go! That's my girl!!!

And of course, cupcakes......

We somehow managed to get all the kids together for a photo op:

That evening, I joined Dave at the St. Barbara's Day Ball, which is the Field Artillery's annual formal ball. It was out in Pinehurst at the Carolina Inn - classy!!! It was fun to attend an event like that in a dress, rather than in uniform. And doesn't Dave look dashing??

We danced and had a great time. I also discovered my new favorite after-dinner drink - Jameson and Baileys. It is the perfect combo - the Baileys cuts the high alcohol content of the whisky, and the whisky tones down the super-rich cream liqueur. Try it out the next time you are looking for a nightcap!!

CSI: Fort Gillem Enclave, Georgia

December is, hands down, the busiest month of the year. Shopping, traveling, and lots of holiday events. I love it!! It does get a little crazy, though. And this year, I added to the hectic month of December by spending a week away from work at the US Army Criminal Investigation Lab for an "introduction to forensics" course. It is basically the real-life version of the forensics lab on NCIS, located at the now-defunct Fort Gillem, Georgia, just a small parcel of federal-borrowed land on the bad side of Atlanta.

The class was very interesting and enlightening. Of course it's not quite like the TV shows - what takes 10 seconds on TV takes weeks of painstaking labor in the real world. But, we learned how crimes are solved with minute fibers of clothing left by a suspect, invisible fingerprints, bare traces of blood, handwriting analysis, etc. The firearms experts showed us how they could tell whether or not a specific bullet was fired out of a specific gun, based on the microscopic imperfections inside the barrel of that weapon. We were shown a huge pressure chamber which depressurizes its interior to the equivalent of outer space, and then uses vaporized gold and zinc to bring out latent fingerprints on a surface. Pretty amazing stuff. And while none of it is a perfect science, I left there wondering how anyone could ever possibly get away with a crime!! It will also help me on the job, since I'll understand the forensic tools behind the investigation much better.

Now I'm back home, and will update this blog shortly with some events of the recent past. I hope you are all getting ready for the holidays and enjoying the season!!!

Thanksgiving!

Yes, I'm a little late on posting about Thanksgiving. What can I say...I'm a busy girl, and every time I sit down at the computer to work on the blog, Lily comes over and starts banging on the keys, asking to "play a game," which means watch stupid kids videos on YouTube. So, I don't get around to it while she is awake, and while she's sleeping, I tend to use that time to work out or run, read a book, or (rarely) sleep myself.

But here it is!! Julie and Dave's Awesome Thanksgiving Feast. Lily spent the holiday weekend with her dad, and although I missed her, I was totally thrilled to have four whole days to do whatever the heck I wanted. On Thursday, that meant preparing all sorts of delicious food with Dave, my partner-in-yummy-crime.

The main event was a roast duck, which we were lucky to procure with a friend of Dave's who happens to own two restaurants out in Southern Pines. Here's our little 6 lb duckling swimming in some brine, which not only lends flavor, but leads to a crispy, brown skin.

After much googling, we learned that a proper roasted duck involves long, slow temps, lots of flipping, and scoring the skin to allow all the lovely rendered fat to escape. I'll give you a quick picture montage of the progression. Here she is, ready to go into the oven:

After the first hour:

The second hour:

Third:

And after the fourth hour, crispy, brown, rich and delicious. Why have I never roasted a duck before? I don't know!! It's easy - sure it takes time, but other than that, not much work involved. And it was so good, Dave and I couldn't stop talking about it.

We added to the duck the following: Cauliflower and Parsnip Puree (fantastic!), Balsamic Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Seasoned Bread Crumbs (also fantastic!), Brown Bread Stuffing with Apples, Chestnuts, and Sausauge (yes, this too!), and homemade cranberry sauce (I don't know why anyone eats the canned stuff, other than nostalgia).

I realize that Cauliflower and Parsnip Puree sounds pretty boring, but trust me, it was Awesome with a capital "A," and easy enough to make for a regular dinner.

Here we are attempting to take a photo with the time-delay feature on my camera.... it took a few tries and this is the best we could do before commencing stuffing our faces.

Now for the rest of the weekend. As I pondered what Dave and I could do with 4 whole days without Lily, I (for some reason) thought - "ooh, let's put together a puzzle!" So I ordered this 1,500 piece puzzle. 1,500 pieces is a lot of pieces!! We started by sorting it out....

And after about 2-3 hours and several glasses of wine, this is how far we got!!! You guys, it is harder than it looks.

Anyway, Dave has since abandoned the project, but I have kept at it and made significant progress. Amazingly, I have managed to keep the Lily tornado from completely destroying it thus far. I'll post a picture of my ongoing struggle later (I know, try to contain your excitement!!)

On Saturday, we went to the Bell Tree Tavern in Southern Pines, a bar which, inexplicably her in NC, is known as the Ohio State bar, and it was all decked out and full of Buckeyes for the game. We got started with some Bloody Mary's and hoped for the best.

Of course you know our poor Buckeyes didn't win, but at least it was a close game. I hadn't been able to watch an entire game from start to season all year, so it was fun to get out for it.

Finally, on Sunday I got Lily back, and we put up our Christmas tree!!! It isn't much of a tree, but as my Mom said, it probably didn't seem small to Lily. We had fun pulling out my little collection of ornaments and hanging them on the tree.

Lily is excited for Christmas this year, which makes me excited!

We finished out the weekend with some painting, and that was that!! My little artiste displays quite the focus when she is working on a project.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. :-) Thanks for reading!!