Thanksgiving

Six of my co-workers, plus one wife, and one brother of co-workers joined us for Thanksgiving this year.  Also one of Alan's assistant's and her boyfriend.  It's nice to have a big group for the biggest meal of the year, especially when so many people don't have any relatives around.

Linda, Jamie, Colleen, Shawn, Me

Michi, Hartley, Josh?

Mitch, Durf, Me, Jamie, Michelle, Elora, Chad

Elora loved Michelle, Shawn, & Jamie

It was nice having Serge around for the preparations.  He is a chef at the restaurant I work at and Linda, Alan, and I had tons of questions for him.  He also introduced a new tradition: making onion rings as an appetizer before frying the turkey:)

We had four turkeys this year: inflatable, baked, smoked, and fried.  The last three were delicious.

Kiddie table

Elora trying out Chad's pumpkin chiffon pie and loving it!

After all the friends went home we enjoyed two days and nights of family time:

Battlegrounds

Elora, Trey, and Andy 

The kids and B sledding behind the 4-wheeler

Sledding

Elora heading out to the pond to help Grammy & Papa shovel snow off the ice

Extended J. Family Christmas Party

Catching up.

Dec. 3rd

Margene, Bonnie, Garff

Dennis, Sharlene, R'Lene, Bill

The pile of White Elephant gifts

Trey, Coach, Margo, JD

Carmel corn!

Vanessa, M'Lindsay, Matt

Yesterday

Our original plan for the Christmas holidays was to go up to the cabin on Christmas Day and stay for a couple nights.  We ended up going up Friday the 23rd and staying until yesterday (Mon. the 2nd) with a two day break at home in the middle.
Yesterday it was in the upper 40s at the cabin and though the valleys have no snow there was enough snow for sledding all week (though not really enough for snowmobiling or snowshoeing).  Lots of time spent cooking, talking, and playing video games.

basement bounce house

Checking out the ice rink

Arms out!

The sledding champ

Around Christmas Elora's throat was too sore from her tonsillectomy to make her want to breathe in the cold outside air, but now that it has healed she did a lot of sledding yesterday, even one run with her brother on his orange tube (his favorite Christmas gift).

New Year's Eve

I know I haven't posted any Christmas stuff yet but I didn't have my camera so I am waiting on others to share with me.  I do have cute Christmas-y stuff from early Dec. to post but I'm doing this first, so there.

Spent NYE working.  I have fun co-workers and I made good money.

Jay, Doug, Sara, Me, and Santi

Shawn, Michelle, Me, Chad, Brian E.

Nick, Me, Kelsi

Silly girls

Cute girls

A bunch of the gang at 1:30am

Films of 2011

What movies did I see that released in 2011?

Green Hornet (main character needed to be either geekier or more charismatic) **
Gnomeo & Juliet *****
Rango ****

Jane Eyre ****
Limitless ****
Source Code ****
Hanna ***
X-Men First Class ****

Green Lantern ***
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2 ****
Crazy Stupid Love ****

The Help ***1/2
Our Idiot Brother **
Anonymous ****

So I saw 14 current movies this year and only 6 of them in the theater.  I don't think I went to the movies from Feb. to about July.  Yeah for Netflix:)

Some people are calling it The Year of the Sequel.  It also appears to have been The Year of Natalie Portman (and Anton Yelchin) judging by how many movies she was in this year.

Movies released this year currently in my Netflix queue:

Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
The Conspirator
Water for Elephants
The Beaver
Super 8
Winnie the Pooh
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Cowboys & Aliens
Moneyball
50-50

Movies I still have a chance at seeing in the theater:

Tower Heist
J. Edgar ("Kids in Mind" website rates it more appropriate for children than Crazy Stupid Love despite it's R rating)
Mission Impossible 4
Sherlock Holmes 2

The Change-Up and Horrible Bosses both star Jason Bateman, who I adore, but neither looked that good and both got R ratings (which I avoid watching).

Favorite Christmas Movies & Music

I need to repost a link to my favorite holiday movies and music again.

Brandon and I are really into Christmas stuff.  We've watched most of our Christmas movies already, the kid ones more than once.  Every year we buy a new Christmas album.  This year it was Tony Bennett.  As an added bonus I got the Elf soundtrack from Robin for my birthday.  Both are great albums!

Elora and I in our matching outfits on Sunday.

We've cut our our tree for the past four years, but this one is from a lot.

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday everything was covered in frost crystals in our town.

We're supposed to finally get snow tomorrow.
Finally made some money at work last night.  Hopefully waiting tables in P.C. will be profitable from here on out:)
Sundance movies have been announced.  Gotta pick mine.  Get some of the first dibs on tickets and can pick mine out on Jan. 4th.  Pick up my tickets on the 17th and the festival starts the 19th.  Will probably go to three movies and work like six shifts in 10 days.  Madness.  Movies.  Money.

Celebrity Crushes - 5th Edition

Pej Vahdat (fell in love with him on Bones)

Christian Coulson (aka: Tom Riddle)

Bruno Mars

Brendan Hines

(Fell in love with him on Lie to Me)

Vincent D'Onofrio

(Law & Order: Criminal Intent)

Jeff Goldbloom

(I take a lot of flack for this one but look at those lips)

Wayne Brady

(and here's where the comedy run begins)

Jason Sudeikis

Will Forte