They played "Apples to Apples", they goofed around, made hot cocoa, and did some "Carol-oke" (...as Weazy calls it. Trina has a karaoke machine and we bought a Christmas Karaoke CD). Trina's best friend, Kara came over earlier this week and I snapped this shot of her bonding with Niklaus. Niklaus calls Kara "my friend". Last year, she was included on his list of friends that he wanted to invite to his birthday party and this year was no different. It helps that Kara has 4 younger brothers and understands them pretty well!
Saturday night, Butch and I actually went on a DATE! We went with Trine (sis) and Matt (bro-in-law) to a Greek restaurant that Butch had done some work on the week before. It was kind of neat to try something different. The feta stuffed, char-broiled peppers were YUM! The meat and sea-food were so-so, the deserts were a little too still frozen, and the green beans (on the side) were yucky, canned and seemed so gross for a nice restaurant. The pita bread and yogurt/spiced dip was good, though. I loved the Greek red wine I tried. We probably won't go there again, but we decided that we should make an effort to try some new place every other month...and we got some good ideas of what we should make for our "big, fat, Greek Christmas" theme on Christmas eve this year. I tried to get a bunch of good pictures of us (to prove to ourselves that we were actually "out"!) but none of the couples ones turned out so I'll post this funny one of Trine and I toasting.
We look funny because we were trying for a "we are very used to fine dining and cosmopolitan living" pose hahahaha! We were sitting next to a cool picture of an old, Greek, street scene. The restaurant itself is pretty classy and nicely decorated but it was rather loud. I was expecting something cheesy with icky carpet and some cliche' Greek mandolin music in the background but there wasn't any of that.
I think it was the too rich food or maybe the yogurt dip, but I didn't feel very well when we got home and I think I may have gotten a touch of food poisoning. It may have been that the baby didn't like Greek food? Although, we all ate the same things and Trine did say that Matt felt a little sick too, so it may have just affected us for some reason. I guess that's the risk you take when you go out somewhere to eat! It was worth it! We had a nice time and the kids babysat themselves and didn't have any major blowups or fights (that I know of). They got Niklaus and Mariela to sleep just fine and had some of Trina's friends over to goof around with.
We were going to go get a tree tonight (Sunday) after Mass, but we decided that will be Monday's project (and decorating) instead. Sometime this week we plan to hit the MOA to see the decorations and to get some last minute presents. We'll see how that goes!
