Christmas Recap!

Whew, December was a busy month! When I last blogged earlier this month we were having Friday night Tagalong fun so that I could bring something delicious to a dessert exchange party at my friend Jordan's apartment. It turned out that they were a hit! Plus they're so easy to make, so I will definitely keep that recipe in my back pocket. On Saturday that weekend, I took a party bus up to Sonoma with a group of my co-workers for some celebration wine tasting. We went to three different wineries that day: Jacuzzi, Viansa, and Gloria Ferrer. It was beautiful even in December!

After getting back to the city in the late afternoon, I had just enough time to nap before heading out to another Christmas party. This time we ventured over to the Russian Hill neighborhood to my sister's friend Nick's apartment (the one we had dinner with when Katie and Matt were in town). We ended up running into a few Michigan grads there (who were from Toledo!) and had a ton of fun. So much fun in fact that we were a little sluggish in waking up Sunday morning, but we had places to be! We headed out to Jack London Square in Oakland for a champagne brunch to celebrate Lauren and Kimberly's 30th birthdays. Woo hoo! That night was the dessert exchange party, and I don't think I've ever been so exhausted from one weekend!

The following weekend, our last in SF before heading home for the holidays, we spent Friday night celebrating Jordan's friend Andy's birthday and then headed out to Walnut Creek on Saturday for the Raetz family Christmas Party - Bay Area Edition. It's always fun to get together with Jordan's sisters and I'm glad they're so close! Instead of doing dinner we had lots of heavy appetizers. My holiday meatballs even made a reappearance since they had so many fans at Thanksgiving.

After a relaxed last week of work, we finally headed home to Michigan! We arrived on Christmas Eve morning and immediately took a nap to recover from our red eye flight. That afternoon we headed over to Brian and Jill's to celebrate with my immediate family. It was wonderful to all be together again for the first time since the wedding! My niece Claire has gotten so big! She really has grown up so much, even since I saw her in October. Jordan got this lovely t-shirt among other things, and I got new rainboots! I also got a cookie scoop, which Claire seemed to enjoy!

On Christmas morning we headed to Toledo for the usual day of festivities with extended family. We weren't leaving again until the 29th so we had a few days to spend with family and friends! I spent some days shopping with mom, of course, and playing with little Claire. We also had time for karaoke with Katie and Matt at a bar in downtown Rochester - they're pretty much experts at it so now Jordan and I want to practice and find karaoke songs that are good for us!

Now that we're back in San Francisco, we've been relaxing at the apartment and trying to get organized before the new year arrives! I know I'm going to very busy with work for the next 3 months, so it's nice to take some time to enjoy doing nothing beforehand. We don't even have plans for tonight other than enjoying a movie and Sangria at home! I'm just glad I don't have to do inventory counts tomorrow, hooray!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Kicking Off the Holidays

December has turned out to be quite the busy month. Last weekend we had not one, but two ompany holiday parties to attend, Jordan's on Friday night and mine on Saturday night. Oddly enough, both were held at wineries outside the city, but they went very differently. I got to Jordan's a bit late since I had to drive down from the city after work. It was at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, a beautiful location literally on top of a mountain. They still had a great buffet set up when I got there and we had a good time hanging out with his coworkers and people watching on the dance floor.

The view from the Mountain Winery.

On Saturday night, we got all dressed up again to head to my party at The Winery on Treasure Island (an island in between San Francisco and the East Bay. We were fashionably late, but when we got there it was already so packed you could barely move. The space was clearly not big enough for the amount of people attending. We tried unsuccessfully to wait in a few food station lines and then decided to head upstairs where it was slightly less crowded. We managed to make it through the "Napa" station which pretty much consisted of cheese and crackers...and that ended up being all we ate. It even took Jordan 30+ minutes to get our first drink. Ugh. By the time we were prepared to move around, all of the food stations had run out of food. Sooo, needless to say, Jordan and I left and went out to dinner at 11:30pm back in the city. I guess computer engineers know how to throw a better party than accountants :(

Aaand the only picture of us from either night.

Sorry it's blurry and the TV is reflecting off my glasses..

It's getting a little colder around here but I know I'm in for a real treat when I get back to Michigan in a few weeks! To be honest, it doesn't really feel like Christmas yet - there's no snow, I wore flip flops last weekend, and I've done pretty much all our shopping online instead of at bustling malls! We've also opted to not put up a Christmas tree this year. It's sad, I know, but by the time we could get one (tomorrow), it would only be up for two weeks and we're not spending the holiday here. So, being the frugal shopper that I am, we're going to wait until all the post-Christmas sales to get a tree and other decorations for next year. Not going to lie - it's a bit depressing, but I'll just have to soak up all the Christmas cheer when I'm home!

Although, we've got even more holiday festivities this weekend that might get me in the spirit. I won't spill all the details now, but I did have to do some baking tonight in preparation for a holiday dessert exchange at my friend Jordan's apartment on Sunday. Well, not really baking..more like melting and assembling. I took the lazy but delicious route and made homemade Tagalongs (my favorite Girl Scout cookie). Yum! Take a look:

We've taste tested one so far..messy but so good! Almost as good as the real thing! And with that I leave you with a picture I took tonight from our rooftop. A nice reminder of how awesome it is to live here :)