Christmas in Elgin

The last three days of my vacation we headed to Elgin for our friends' annual Christmas party. (Here's our visit last year - the girls have changed so much!)

On Thursday I brought lunch to Amanda at the Novel Neighbor and stocked up on sticker books and a Highlights hidden picture book for the trip. I also checked out several picture books with CDs at the library. They happily stickered away.

Stopping for lunch at their favorite, "Old McDonalds".

Fun in Elgin! We ordered in Mexican food for dinner and the girls played. And played.

And played. I love how completely zonked C looks here.

The newest addition to the family, Uma the Bernadoodle!

A light dusting of snow the day of the party. We went to see Coco, which was beautiful and so clever. The adults were moved by the themes of death, dying, aging, and memory and Clementine liked "the rainbow dragon cat!" That's a Pixar movie for you: come for the incredible animation, stay for the emotional gut-punch.

As it happens, Mike - my lifestyle guru - bought a sous vide machine almost the same time I did and used it for several of the dishes at the party --> beef tenderloin crostini

Shrimp with Old Bay seasoning

This year,  Brett and Elise brought their baby!

The Night Before Christmas and presents from Santa and Mrs Claus. Josie's gift was this reindeer (selected by me) and when I asked her what Santa brought she said cheerfully, "a goat!"

As the party wound down I snuggled in with the girls to watch the Robin Williams version of Jumanji and finally, somehow, all of us fell asleep somewhere. When Josie woke up next to me she smiled and snuggled close and gave me a hug. She's such a love bug.

Doughnuts and breakfast sandwiches before the long drive home.

With the sticker books all stickered and not much interest in the audiobooks, the girls watched Lady and the Tramp and Moana. Their favorite quote from Moana is, "really, a blowdart? In my butt cheek." which becomes, "Willy? A bwodark? In my butt cheat?

Restorative Sunday night dinner of 10 cent ramen topped by 6 minute egg, sprinkled with cilantro and scallions. The next week I would be on call and the band would arrive from Texas - all of us back to work.