Bob’s cousin, Drew, was in town for the holidays and he expressed interest in a hockey game while here. We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see a game so Bob gathered a group of us and headed down to the game.

Our first stop was the Royale. Bob is such a huge fan of this restaurant. It has the corner local bar vibe to it with simple bar food. We had wanted to go to Pappy’s but it was closed for Christmas so this was our second choice. It was a more than adequate choice for dinner. I’m a big fan of the fish tacos, I would recommend that dish.

After sitting down in our seats, the Blackhawks scored and our entire section stood up and cheered. I had no idea that we were surrounded by Blackhawk fans. But don’t worry, I represented. Each time the Blues scored, we cheered loudly. Monika and I even participated in the Power Play dance. We wanted the Blackhawk fans to know that we weren’t intimidated by them. And we saw a winning game, woo! Now, they were only one goal away from free Big Macs but a win was a win.

We wanted to take that winning energy and apply that to the Mizzou game so we went to Lester’s to watch the Insight Bowl. This was my first time at Lester’s and I have to say, it is definitely a great place to watch a sports game. There were TVs all over the place, wherever you sat, you were able to see a game. The fries were delicious and I enjoyed my coke float (although, my order confused the waitress, she didn’t understand that I wanted to replace root beer with coke). Unfortunately, with all of our cheering, the Tigers were not able to pull out a win. So sad. But hey, one of two wins, I’ll take it.

On my first official day of vacation, I spent the day slaving away in the kitchen, by choice. And it was fabulous. I started off the morning in Krissy’s kitchen, learning how to bake yeast bread. The teacher: Katie. The students: Krissy, Kat and I. Armed with our KitchenAid mixers and our yeast, we were mixing, kneading, baking machines.

We churned out loaf bread, sweet dinner rolls and large cinnamon rolls. The scent of fresh baked bread filled the air and I may never go back to store-bought again. Katie was a fabulous instructor, teaching us bread-baking techniques and taking the scariness out of baking with yeast. Thanks so much for the lesson, it is very much appreciated! Now, what did the guys do? Of course:

As soon as the last cinnamon roll was iced, Bob and I headed to the Kitchen Conservatory for their cooking class: Tuscany for Two. It was our date night and we were there to cook and feast on menu from Tuscany. This was a hands-on class and I was a little disappointed being appointed to roast the vegetables. It consisted of making the marinade, chopping the vegetables, marinating the vegetables, and then finally roasting them. Child’s play. When the description said hands-on, I was expecting to participate in every aspect of the menu, unfortunately, that was not the case. The food was delicious, though, and I will be keeping the recipes from that night. Maybe I’ll have some people over for a dinner party and I can whip this up.

Last year, we went to Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy at the Fox Theatre and absolutely loved it. We were blown away with the set design, the acrobatics, the creativity of the show. When we heard that Cirque Dreams was coming again with a holiday special, there was no hesitation, we were going and were going to be impressed.

We were sorely disappointed. I felt like we needed to smoke a bowl in order to enjoy the spectacle that was Holidaze. The acrobatics were not as impressive, the original holiday songs did not need to be sung and the set designs and characters were downright terrifying. There was no storyline, no cohesion between one thing and another. Even worse, they felt the need to belt out “modern” Christmas carols. I would not recommend this show, don’t waste your money.

The only saving grace was that we went to the Fountain on Locust afterwards for a light dinner. The interior is eclectic and casual with it’s art deco murals and pops of color, a mixture of bar and old school ice cream parlor. The menu has an array of dishes and we all ordered different items. I had the Royal Grille (an adult grilled cheese sandwich with apple slices). It was delicious. Everyone enjoyed what they each ordered.

I was intrigued by the dessert menu, of course, and so I saved some room for some of that. What did I order?

The world’s smallest ice cream cone!!! My sister and Kim each ordered the world’s smallest ice cream sundae. Aren’t they just adorable?

I would definitely recommend the Fountain, we heard about it from friends and now we are passing the recommendation on to you. It’s a fun and different place for you to check out the next time you are down around that area.

For the second year in a row, Bob’s firm offered their employees the choice of a Butterball turkey or Hank’s cheesecake. Last year, we received a cheesecake but this year, we wanted the turkey. And I knew exactly when I was going to cook the bird: Christmas Eve. I know that may sound strange to most of you since Thanksgiving was just a month ago but we, unfortunately, did not have the pleasure of turkey and that needed to be rectified.

This was my first foray into cooking a turkey. Yes, I know, I do enjoy cooking, but I never really had to opportunity to tackle a turkey. I thought it would be an adventure and I was not disappointed.

After thawing the carcass out for four days in the fridge, we lugged it over to my mom’s house. There was no way in hell I was going to stick my hand in it’s cavity and neither was my sister, so the honor went to Bob. His mission: to find the giblets and the neck. It took a few minutes for him to yank out the neck and looked so proud as he held it up. Now, on to coating the outside with the herb butter. That was NOT a pleasant experience for me. You are greasing up a ginormous dead bird. There was quite a bit of squealing from me as I massaged it. We then stuffed it full of vegetables and into the oven it went.

About five minutes into cooking, Bob read the instructions and it said something about a plastic bag of giblets. Panicked, he pulled it out, took out the stuffing and checked the cavity with a flashlight. My sister and I reassured him that he got it because we both saw him throw away a plastic bag. So, we stuffed it again and threw it back in the oven for 3.5 hours.

4 hours later, the oven revealed a golden colored, roasted turkey. It looked and smelled wonderful. A success! I had the perfect platter for it (a Christmas gift from my sister) and Bob began to carve it. It was his first experience in carving a turkey and I’ll say, A for effort. It wasn’t pretty, but it got done. While cutting, though, he noticed something a bit odd that was sticking out the neck cavity. With a confused look on his face, he tugged on it and out came the plastic bag of giblets! Awesome! Apparently Bob did not know that there were two cavities to a turkey and my sister and I saw him throw away the plastic bag that the bird came in and assumed it was the giblets. Thankfully, no harm no foul and we had a wonderful meal.

I hope your Christmas was as exciting as ours was! Don’t worry, next year, we’ll try and set fire to the oven.

Don’t worry, she got plenty of treats in exchange for this humiliation. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!