It's been a while

The holidays were very busy, and somehow that's bled into whole of January, and apparently half of February, too. So, the short version:

Christmas:
Our annual trip to the mall was a great success. Anastasia was very excited to ask for a veterinarian kit, a barbie doll and a unicorn. She stipulated that the unicorn should be a pretend one, since we don't have a place to keep a real one (dodged a bullet there, didn't ya Santa?).



Santa delivered (though Barbie landed at the wrong house and had to be delivered by our friend Rob), and the grown ups were all happy, too. Myney got everything she wished for, I was shocked by a new iPad, and Orlando got the thing he wished for most of all:



Several friends, including Mark and the aforementioned Rob, joined us for a dinner of roast suckling pig with lots of sides. The apple wouldn't stay in his mouth, but he made a pretty picture nevertheless. All in all, it was a lovely meal with almost no leftovers to enjoy the next day.



Winter Break:
Between us, Orlando and I were able to coordinate days off so Anastasia didn't go to camp at all during winter break this year. She was very excited to get to spend time with each of us. With Daddy, she got to go to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, where she saw Dorothy's ruby slippers, the Muppets (she calls it the Muppet Museum, after all), and the gowns of the first ladies.

When it was my turn, we did the puzzles and played the games that she got for Christmas, and enjoyed breakfast at a neighborhood restaurant. Don't you dip your bacon in jelly?



We also organized her closet, thanks to the Elfa sale at the Container Store. Anastasia was a super helper with the project, and she was really excited to get to put her things away. It's not easy to see in the picture, but the drawers are filled with stuffed animals.



New Years:
Orlando had to work on New Year's Eve (the hotel hosted one of the biggest NYE parties in the city, so he was busy until very late), so Myney, Anastasia and I joined our friends at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant for dinner. I was excited to eat homemade tamales, a shout out to my Texas roots, others ordered fish, fajitas and tacos. Anastasia fell asleep during dinner, but was a trooper until the grown ups were done.



Our dinner ended with complimentary shots of tequila. Thanks to Abby and Nathalie for taking the shots for Myney and me. It was a very fun night, even if I did have to carry 40 lbs of sleeping child up the stairs.

Super Bowl:
With no Super Bowl parties on our agenda, our weekend highlight was the Super Bowl Bar Crawl, an annual tradition for our friends the Martins and Larry (Miser) Davenport, capped off every year by a chug race between Miser and Laura.



We joined the party well into the evening, and kept it going beyond the last bar on the agenda for the evening. We ended up at Trusty's, a neighborhood joint with a short bus for a bar. Needless to say, our fun times ended in a cab ride home.



So, that pretty much gets us caught up to now. More coming soon.