Some Christmas Pics

Oh what a busy few days!! Saturday morning we had brunch with Naperville Greg and Kleveland Kim down by their house out The Bongo Room. Great food again! That was our only meal until dinner with my folks for my dad's 76th birthday at Allgauer's in Lisle. The food there was pretty good, but the soup (which I normally avoid BECAUSE of the sodium) was loaded with sodium and it wasn't inexpensive by any stretch. Mind you, it served the dual purpose of pretty good food and relatively quiet, but I think we can do better in the area. We just need to find it!!

On Sunday, LL went to wrap gifts with her family (including cousins) in Joliet while I watched the Bears game and wrapped gifts at home. On Christmas eve, after a hearty breakfast pictured below and a trip to the gym, we headed to Joliet to spend the day with LL's parents, her uncle and aunt, their daughter and her boyfriend (who is from Uzbekistan!!).

I saw this dish as a post on Facebook from Pintrest. You make a ring (or four) out of a pepper and cook an egg inside of it. The pepper acts like an egg ring of sorts, but it's edible! We decided to throw it on an English muffin with some cheese and had some Bob Evans links with it. Awesome.

Last year we went to LL's church in Joliet, she's Presbyterian, so this year we went to my church.  Being pretty worn out from the day and the last two weeks really, we opted to get up in the morning for church instead of going to midnight mass, which actually starts at midnight at my church as opposed to ending at midnight; big difference.

Christmas day then, after we opened gifts to each other, we headed out to my folks to spend the day with them and my sisters and their family. The highlight of my gifts to LL is in the attached picture. It's a Joe Sutton original!! I purchased a ring from my folks which had this emerald and 6 marquis diamonds and changed the ring into this beautiful turtle necklace. LL loves turtles and loves the necklace. Pretty awesome!! I was concerned that maybe it wouldn't turn out well, but the jeweler to whom I took the ring said yeah, he could make it work and it should look pretty cool. Awesome!







 One of my many gifts, is this hardcore, work-site boom box which I plan to take to tailgating with us next year. It's got it's own roll cage!! Sweet.

And this is just a picture of me and Molly. I have no idea why I took this picture, but why not share it??