Merry Christmas!

The last few days have been a fun, but somewhat hectic whirlwind of Christmas activities and travel to Seattle to celebrate Christmas with our families. We're ready to settle down, relax, and enjoy time with some of our favorite people. I'll leave you with a few highlights from our Christmas season. We wish you a peace-filled, festive, and safe holiday weekend.

Christmas 2010

• We try to do an annual Christmas date. This year, we visited the tree of lights in Zilker Park, ate dinner at Austin's legendary Mexican joint, El Arroyo, and then visited the flagship Whole Foods to pick out dessert (freshly made dark chocolate caramels with sea salt) and watch the ice skaters at the rink on the roof of Whole Foods.

• A few days later, we drove out to Fredericksburg and the wine country to do a little tasting and pick up our wine club shipment at our favorite winery, Pedernales Cellars. On our way home, we passed by the Pedernales Electric Company in Johnson City, and saw the coolest Christmas lights we've probably ever seen. It seems a little ironic that this is sponsored by an electric company (or maybe not ironic at all?), but it was breathtaking.
  

• And I know I've already shown our Christmas tree several times, but I just love how cute it is. We'll always remember our first married Christmas tree.
  

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Holiday Fondue Dinner

When I was very young, my dad's job took us over to Geneva, Switzerland for two years. I remember a few things from that time period-- some of our travels and random things a toddler would think were cool (like the playground behind our apartment and the trikes at my pre-school), but my parents soaked up quite a bit of the Swiss culture and fell in love with a few traditions that they brought back to the U.S. with us. One of those traditions is Swiss cheese fondue, which we feast on every year for Christmas Eve dinner. This year, I'm celebrating Christmas with J's family, but didn't want to miss out on one of my favorite holiday meals. So we decided, why not share the cheese-y, carb-y love? The result was a delicious pre-Christmas fondue dinner with 3 of our favorite couples from business school.

Fondue, although incredibly rich, is super easy to make. Paired with a big, green salad, copious wine, and some homemade Christmas cookies for dessert, it was an easy dinner party to pull together.

Traditional Swiss Fondue
(Serves 6-8)

2/3 bottle dry white wine

2-3 garlic cloves, sliced

2.5 lbs. good Gruyere cheese, grated

3-4 Tbsp. flour

3 baguettes, sliced

2-3 Tbsp. Kirsch (optional)

Toss the grated cheese with the flour. Pour the wine into a large pot and add the sliced garlic. Simmer the wine with the garlic for 5-10 minutes, but do not let the wine boil. Remove the garlic with a slotted spoon. Add the cheese and flour mixture by handfuls, stirring until each handful is melted before adding another handful. When all the cheese has been melted, you can add 2-3 Tbsp. (approximately 1 shot) of Kirsch if you like. (Kirsch is a cherry brandy from Switzerland or France... it just gives it a little extra kick.)

Serve the fondue on top of a heated fondue stand to keep the cheese warm and gooey, and start dipping those sliced baguettes!

J waiting patiently for the guests to arrive

Getting festive...

And getting ready to chow down... Bon Appetit!

Christmas Ornament Exchange

This year I participated in the Christmas Ornament Exchange, hosted by Karen from Karen At Home and Shannon from Webbisodes. They paired us each up with a partner and we picked out and shipped a special holiday ornament to our partner. My partner was the lovely B, from I.M.T.L.Y., and she sent me this gorgeous gold ball:

Up close

On the tree

I think I kind of like it with my sparkly mantle decorations!

The ornament exchange was a fun way to get introduced to some new blogs and bloggers, and I will definitely be participating next year. Thanks for hosting, ladies!

Holiday Gruene-ery

That (bad) pun won't make much sense to anyone outside of central Texas... for the rest of you, Gruene (pronounced Green-- haha, get it??) is a tiny, scenic town about an hour south of Austin whose motto reads, "gently resisting change since 1872." True to this statement, the town looks like it's straight out of an old west movie set, with a general store, a few saloons and restaurants, numerous antique shops, and Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. And around the holidays, Gruene oozes charm.

This past weekend, we were invited down for the night to celebrate my friend Cassie's birthday with three other b-school couples. We bunked up in cabins at the Gruene Mansion Inn, strolled the festively lit streets checking out boutique after candy shop after boutique, enjoyed a delicious birthday meal at the Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar, and capped off the evening with lots of pool and live country music at Gruene Hall. I love exploring the little historic towns that make each region unique, and this was no exception. We had a great time.

The birthday girl, and her husband, Dan

The girls goofing around outside the dance hall

Cory Morrow on stage at Gruene Hall

Serious fans

Dan and Alle shootin' pool

J and I enjoying the show

Duck-erating our Tree

First, I want to give a shout out to Penny Lane Designs for my lovely new blog design. I was so ready for a change, and I love my new look!

I'm a week late in posting this, but I have some pictures of our first married Christmas tree that I wanted to share. Last Saturday, J and I got up and did what any Austonian would do on an 80 degree day in December-- put on our sunglasses and flip flops and headed out to get our tree. (I should have taken a picture of our outfits just to remember it!) We went to a lot, but were impressed with the number, size, and quality of the trees. I'm gonna go ahead and say it... having been raised in Washington and Oregon respectively, J and I have pretty high standards for what constitutes a Christmas tree. In fact, the act of going to a lot-- instead of going out to a farm in the woods and cutting down our own tree-- seemed highly suspect. But since the closest cut-down-your-own-tree farm was halfway to Houston, and since we had a very important game to watch that afternoon, the lot worked out just fine.

We selected a delicious smelling fir tree from North Carolina. Since we live in an apartment, and are going to be spending about 10 days in Seattle over the holidays, we opted for a smaller, more manageable 5 foot tree that would be easy to put up, easy to take down... and easy to stuff in my Jetta. That's another picture I wish would have taken!

After stopping at Target for some lights and garlands, and then at a local taqueria to fortify ourselves with a few tacos al pastor and some Mexican Coke (have you had that stuff?? addictive!), we headed home to... "Duck-erate" our tree. That is-- to decorate our tree while watching the Oregon Ducks trounce the Oregon State Beavers to lock up their number 2 BCS ranking and earn their (first ever!) trip to the National Championships. Obviously I've been a little, um, "preoccupied" throughout the fall-- otherwise I would have written more about their amazing season. But we're all very excited and will definitely be tuning in on January 10th to watch them play Auburn for the championship.

So here are a few pictures of our first married Christmas tree. The past two years we've been travelling so we opted not to do full out Christmas decorations in the past, but I'm glad we did this year. It's so festive and smells awesome!

The full tree!

J's favorite ornament-- a Hawaiian shirt

Our tree topper-- a repurposed angel ornament. And, yes, that is a UT Bevo figurine in the background. Apparently J thought my mantle needed a little something extra.

And, finally, our stockings and mantle!

Catching up

I can't believe it's already December 3rd! This year is flying by. (I think I say that at the beginning of every new month.) I think it's just especially bizarre to me that it's almost Christmas because it's so nice here! 76 and sunny today. Strange.

We had a great Thanksgiving in Portland. I didn't take any pictures, but we enjoyed plenty of time with my parents, my sister and her husband, and my brother and his fiance. We are all only able to get together a few times a year, so it's special when we do. While we were there they had some unseasonably cold weather-- like lows in the 20s. Before we left (and it was 80+ here), I was pining away for some nice cold weather. I was romanticizing thick wool sweaters, toasty beverages, and roaring fires. Then, as soon as we stepped out of the airport, I remembered what 28 degrees feels like. Not good. It's amazing how fast my blood has thinned. After only a year and a half in Texas, anything below 60 suddenly seems frigid. Still, it's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's this nice. I wouldn't mind it if was cold just through the end of the year, and then we could pick right back up where we left off in the 70s.

I also had my two-week check up for my surgery earlier this week. Everything is looking good, and I can say I am finally feel normal again after two months of pregnancy-related ups, downs, and complications, both physical and emotional. I will need to have my blood tested weekly to monitor me as the hcg in my system declines, until I have 3 consecutive weeks where no hcg is measured. Then I will need monthly tests, totaling up to 6-12 months. My first blood test was on Monday and we got great results. I definitely have a long road to go, but we're off to a good start and I'm just trying to be optimistic. I struggle with taking it one day at a time, and not letting my mind race ahead to all the what-ifs, but I'm really working on trying to enjoy each day as it comes-- even though I feel like my life is in a holding pattern. Patience has never been one of my strengths, so this situation is forcing me to work on cultivating that quality, as well as the ability to stay present in the here and now.

But, fortunately for me, it's the holiday season and there are lots of fun things going on to distract me! Parties, dinners, shopping, and decorating galore. I should be back soon with some fun updates (as well as photos!)

Happy Friday!