Vacation is Now Over, Sigh

As a gift to ourselves, Bob and I took the week after Christmas off and just had a grand ole’ time hanging out with friends and enjoying each other’s company for 10 straight days. What did we do to occupy our time? Well, since you asked, I will give you the rundown:

Monday, Christmas Day: We spent the day at Bob’s aunt and uncle’s house, playing with his cousins’ gifts from Santa – Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero II. That’s right, we all pushed the young ones aside and monopolized the PlayStation II for a couple of hours. Now we know what we want for Christmas next year!

Tuesday: The Annual Holiday Bake-a-Thon. I know, I know, Christmas cookies after Christmas. I promised Monika that I would wait for her to come into town. She had to go off and find a great job at HP in California! So, we decided that the day after Christmas was the best day for baking! And a plus, Christine got to come over and bake with us. So, 12 hours of baking later, it was done.

Our last batch of cookies! And it’s only 11:00 PM.

Wednesday: Bake-a-Thon recovery day. We just sat around the house and pretty much did nothing and ate reject cookies. Later that night, we made some cookie delivery runs and hung out with people to catch up on each other’s lives.

Thursday: Drove to Chicago. Yes, this was the Chicago trip that was postponed due to the Cardinals World Series game. We finally made it up there this past week. We drove straight to the Art Institute. It was absolutely amazing. I stood in front of so many paintings that I had only read about in books. And here I was, seeing them with my own eyes. It was so cool!

Friday: This day was deemed Shopping Day. We shopped at Woodfield Mall (it’s such a HUGE mall) and then trekked on over to Ikea where we met Krissy and Kenny. They came into town to celebrate the New Year with Scott and Sara and we planned our trips so we would be able to hang out with them for one night in Chicago. Bob is like a little kid when it comes to visiting Ikea. He claims that it is “the happiest place on earth.” After getting our fill, we headed over to Sal & Carvao to meet up with Scott and Sara for dinner. Okay, this is heaven for all those Atkins dieters. It is all-you-can-eat meat on sticks. The waiters come around with different types of meat on swords and carve you pieces of it. It was really good. Now I can see why Krissy and Kenny rave about this place. I hear that there is going to be a restaurant similar to this place opening up in Chesterfield, we will definitely have to try it.

Hanging in the bar at Sal & Carvao, before dinner.

Saturday: The long drive home. And, that’s about it.

Sunday, New Year’s Eve: We spent it over at Yao’s. He was having a little get-together. It was low-key, I learned how to play “Asshole.” I know, it’s a drinking game but when you’re drinking water, it really makes you pee, a lot. Fun times.

And that’s the wrap-up. Oh, I forgot to tell you what we got each other for Christmas:

Yep, it finally arrived. The big screen television that I’ve been hemming and hawing over for months. The check was written and cashed and I can’t take it back now. That is why we needed to go to Ikea. Bob wanted something nice to go along with the sleekness of the TV. Merry Christmas to us.