2014-12-25 - Thursday - Christmas

Christmas afternoon we opened our presents at my sister-in-law's house. It was a giggle-fest.

I hope your Christmas was as happy as ours was.

Meredith, Stephanie, Audrey, John, Justin, and Ryan.

Meredith and Stephanie.

Meredith is a bit camera shy.

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2014-12-23 - Tuesday - Leo

On Tuesday Karen, Stephanie, and I drove over to Hackensack, NJ to visit my buddy Leo and his family. We went to lunch at The Crow's Nest. It was a nice seafood restaurant not far from his parent's and sister's home. We had some great conversation and caught up with current events.

After lunch we took a ride over to Leo's and my old hometown of Bogota, NJ. I showed Stephanie my old house, Leo's old house, my grammar school, our high school, and several other landmarks. I don't know if she was impressed, but it sure was good to see some of the old haunts.

Leo and Stephanie.

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2014-12-22 - Monday - Casa del Toro

Monday I went with my brother to see the last Hobbit movie. The movie was very good but it left me feeling a bit sad as it was the end of the saga. David and I have been seeing the middle earth movies together since the first Lord of the Rings release in 2001. In years without a middle earth release we have seen other movies like the magical Hugo in 2011, but there was always another Tolkien movie on the horizon. Not anymore.

[sigh]

Time to move on to other things, but definitely the end of an era.

After the movie we went to Casa del Toro for a nice meal and one of our favorite appetizers: the deep-fried avocado. You can get it stuffed with veggies or ground beef and it has lots of cheese. If you like avocados, you really need to try it.

Fried avocado (from their website).

The poblano peppers in the Chile del Mar were pretty spicy that night so I ordered the tres leches cake to put out the fire. It was amazing and I had to take a photo of it as it was so festive.

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2014-12-21 - Sunday - Pennsylvania

We drove to PA on Saturday and Sunday we were at my brother-in-law's with all the cousins together. Stephanie asked me to take a photo of all the cousins that she could get printed to put in a frame for her grandfather.

It's nice when we all get together and the kids have a great time with each other.

Ryan holding baby Justin.

Clockwise from bottom left:
Audrey, Justin, Stephanie, Ryan, Meredith, and John.

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2014-12-19 - Friday - Kohls craziness

We ran to Kohl's on Friday since Stephanie had a sweater she bought that still had the anti-theft device attached to it. It didn't do much good since she had paid for it and left the store without any alarms going off. It was quickly removed and we were on our way.

I couldn't help but notice this sign on the way into the store. Kohl's will be open 24 hours a day until 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve. How do they have enough personnel to suddenly cover all of those shifts? Who will be shopping at Kohl's at 2:00 am?

When the girls were younger I used to go to Toys R Us when they were open until 11:00 pm. Since they normally closed at 9:00 pm I had almost the whole store to myself after 9:30 pm so I can't imagine Kohl's will have many customers in the wee hours.

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2014-12-18 - Thursday - Lichen, chicken and dumplings, and more assembly

Thursday night I met Karen and Meredith at Lupie's Cafe for chicken and dumplings. While standing outside waiting for them to arrive I noticed the lichen on the awning over the door.

After a nice, filling meal I left for Clayworks and added some more pieces to my pots in progress. I added "wing" handles to the penguin pot and more pieces to the new raku form.

I like lichen.

The penguin and the bucket went to sea.

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2014-12-17 - Wednesday - Old and new

Wednesday night I worked on another garlic pot and a new form I'm thinking about. The new form will be a bit more complicated when it's finished, but the first two pieces are shown assembled.

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