Date 160 - Merry & Bright!

Date: Christmas 2015
Type: Family & Holiday
Cost: $$$$$

Christmas 2015 is officially over. Our holiday season lasted multiple weekends and I'm just going to throw it all in to one post.

December 19th - 
First, Adam and I visited with the Davey Clan. We told stories, had some home brewed beer, ate yummy food and exchanged some very cute gifts. I was also given my dad's old 35mm film SLR camera. I can't wait to try it out! We had a great time visiting with them.
Next, we had the Neubauer Family Christmas. Santa wasn't able to come this year, but everyone still had a wonderful time. Everyone pitched in with food like usual and it was all delicious! There was a new cookie exchange this year (that I wasn't able to participate in), but there were tons and tons of cookies and everyone did a great job. We also had an adult secret Santa gift exchange, all the kids got nice gifts from the family and we had three new babies in the family this year celebrating their first Christmas!

December 24th - (I started suffering from a bad cold therefore very few photos)
Adam and I both worked in the morning but made it to Conneaut in time for the 4PM church service. Then we went to Christmas Eve dinner with the Plosila's. The pizza and home made wine was delicious as always.

December 25th - 
We had Christmas Brunch with Adam's family then Christmas Dinner with my mom and Rob's family. We made it back home pretty early so we were able to exchange our stockies and give the kitties all their gifts. Then we relaxed and watched the Santa Clause to end our Christmas night.

December 26th & December 27th - 
I was still sick so I just laid on the couch both days and watched Harry Potter on ABC Family all weekend. In other news - I upgraded my DSLR camera around this time. I am so excited to learn more with all the new features that I didn't have on my D3000!

December 31st - 
Michelle & Jim arrived for my family's Holiday weekend. We went to dinner at Brio which was very good. Then we went home and opened our individual bottles of champagne. Sarah came over and we all played games and watched the ball drop! Then we stay up a while longer playing more games. It was a nice low key New Years Eve.

January 1st - 
Amanda and Zak arrived around noon. For Zak and Michelle's birthday celebration this year we went with a bar party and cider tasting! Each couple got the ingredients for a do-it-yourself bar. Amanda and Zak brought a hot dog bar - hot dogs, chili, cheese, onions, relish, mustard, ketchup, etc. Michelle & Jim made a caramel apple bar - apple slices, caramel, chocolate, graham crackers, marshmallows, Reese's, peanuts, etc. Adam and I supplied the Nacho Bar - tortilla chips, beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, black olives, salsa, queso, sour cream, etc. It was delicious and we got to eat it all during the OSU bowl game - which they won... if you live under a rock. Michelle and Zak seemed to enjoy their birthday gifts, too. Later on, we went to Play Arcade and Kitchen for some drinks and arcade games. The biggest find of the night was DDR - which none of us had played in awhile. At one point Manda and I did the song Paranoia and thought we might die. No wonder we were so in shape back in high school. We had a lot of fun and got a lot of tickets - we all decided to save them for another day though.

January 2nd - 
The final Christmas party of the year. My mom, rob and grandma came to our house for our Christmas Story/Chinese Christmas party. We had some fun decorations including bunny ears ("he looks like a pink nightmare"), Chinese paper lanterns and chopsticks. My mom brought general tso's chicken, Amanda made a fantastic cranberry/ginger/champagne punch, I made s'more fudge ("Oh fuddddge") and Michelle and I attempted to make fortune cookies with the help of Adam with thinking up the fortunes. Michelle made the rest of the food for dinner including Crab Rangoon, Beef, Fried Rice, White Rice, Pork, etc. She is quite a talented cook! We then went down to the basement for exchanging gifts. Our family does a secret Santa gag gift exchange every year and this year did not disappoint. There were lots of smiles and laughter throughout the exchange. Adam got a mug with a picture of him holding a gag gift mug from a previous year which was probably the funniest gift - from Jim. I got a Miami Redhawks lanyard from Zak - Muck Fiami! The other gifts were fun - Zak got an empty bottle of Kenny Chesney rum from Adam, Manda got finger puppets from mom, Jim got a dino hand puppet from me, Michelle got Dr. Who salt and pepper shakers (which she absolutely loved) from Rob, Mom got a Belichick (who she hates) magnet from Manda and Rob got a shot glass with very small writing from Michelle. Overall, the day was a success.

The holidays are always a fun time of the year. I wish I hadn't gotten sick (again) but we still enjoyed seeing family, giving gifts, getting gifts and celebrating the holiday with the people we love. Better start shopping for next year...

Date 159 - Ho Ho Holiday Hop!

Date: Thursday, December 17, 2015
Type: Out On The Town
Cost: $$
Planned By: Both

Adam and I attended the Legacy Village Holiday Bar Hop for the second year.

The hop started at Granite City where we got a beer mug, drink tickets and a passport. Granite City was packed so we made our way over to Bar Louie for our first drink. I got a martini and Adam got Sam Adams Winter Lager.

Next, we went over to The Melting Pot. They had chocolate covered strawberries which were delicious. Adam got a rum in coke and the bar tender surprised me with a fruity cocktail of some sort that was very good.

The third stop was California Pizza Kitchen. We just had a bite of the complimentary appetizer and got our passport stamped.

The fourth bar was Stir Crazy. I got an Angry Orchard and Adam got Dortmunder. Some lady left her purse on the bar stool so we sat near it for awhile to make sure it didn't get taken. The bar tender couldn't take it probably for company reasons.

Next, we stopped in at Brio Tuscan Grille to just to stamp our passport because it as very busy.

Our last stop was back at Granite City. We each got a beer since it is a brewery after all. I got the Ole Bessie and Adam got the Batch 1000. We were sitting at a large table in the Holiday Hop area and let people sit with us. One of the ladies who sat down was the lady who forgot her purse. She found it and I was very relieved! Then another lady in Granite City gave us two drink tickets that she didn't want. So we got another drink and sat and talked with people for a little while.

After the hop we went over to Chipotle for a very late dinner. Most of the bars were supposed to have food stations for the hoppers, but not many actually did so we were pretty hungry by the end and the Chipotle was delicious and we didn't get Ecoli!

The hop was fun. It was slightly more organized then last year's, and we will probably attend again next year and maybe eat more before going just in case the bars don't provide food again.

Date 158 - Let's Go To The Beach!

Date: November 27th - November 30th
Type: Travel
Cost: $$$$$$$$
Planned By: Adam's Parents

Adam's parents frequently travel to Myrtle Beach and this time we joined them for the long Thanksgiving weekend. They arrived on Wednesday. We left around 4AM on Friday morning and got there around 2:45PM. The drive was long but the weather was nice so it wasn't too bad.

Friday after we settled in we went over to Broadway at the Beach. First stop was Margaritaville for a margarita! Then we checked out some of the shops. We had dinner at Liberty Brewery and Grill. Adam and I like to try local breweries while in other cities and it was so convenient. I got the Raspberry Wheat and Adam and his dad got Santa's Little Helper. Mine was very good - lots of raspberry flavor. After dinner we walked over to the hard rock to get our shot glass - we collect them and this was our third new one for the year! Then we were exhausted and went back and watched Trainwreck which we both thought was hilarious.

Saturday we started off at a beach in North Myrtle Beach called Cherry Grove. It was a beautiful beach. Adam and I had fun walking in the water and collecting shells. The water was a little cold. Debbie & Richard took us on a ride down Ocean Blvd and we made a stop at Molly Darcy's to see the public beach over there. We went back to the condo and took a walk around the old golf course. It was very peaceful and hot - and we saw a frog!

For dinner we went to Boardwalk Billy's a casual restaurant on the Intracoastal Waterway dock area. I found it interesting that most restaurants in Myrtle Beach have regular American food and also sushi. Convenient if you like both I guess! We got burgers and beer and they were very good.

After dinner we walked down to get a better view of the Intracoastal Waterway where there was going to be a Christmas Regatta! We had to wait a bit longer than we expected but it was really fun to see the boats all lit up for Christmas. I took some fun long exposure shots, too. Then we went back relaxed, had some drinks and watched more movies. 

On Sunday we went over to the Myrtle Beach boardwalk. We did not ride the Ferris Wheel which by the way is $20 per person - that's outrageous. We did take a picture with it though. We walked along the boardwalk and checked out some shops. There is a lot to do and eat and drink there! We had lunch at Art, a nice burger and (again) sushi establishment. The burger was huge - I would recommended sharing in the future. Then we went back over to Broadway at the Beach to get an alcoholic slushie at Fat Tuesday. Adam kept getting brain freezes and it was funny. We went back to the beach for a little while. Adam had fun wave jumping as I watched from the shore. We took a nice long walk on the beach together. The closest we got to golf on this trip was going to the golf store and playing in the putting station - which was lots of fun. We had homemade stromboli for dinner thanks to Debbie and went to bed early.

On Monday we got up around 5 and were on the road by 5:30AM. We got home around 4PM. The drive is a little over 10 hours. If you are in the mindset and have sour patch kids and left over stromboli the 10 hours goes by fairly quickly. We had a great time in Myrtle Beach and spending the weekend with Debbie & Richard. It was so nice to relax on vacation as opposed to our last few where we walked for miles and miles (still fun just more tiring). I can't wait for our next trip down there!

Wanna see our other trips from this year? Check them out here:

Disney
Boston
DC