Merry Christmas from the Fort!

Since Matt and I aren't spending Christmas together we decided to have Christmas come to the Fort a little early. So yesterday we cleaned up the downstairs, got a little dressed up and had a wonderful Christmas dinner. I made the most delicious penne a la vodka with garlic bread and Matt chose a fantastic bottle of wine and made us a fire. We had such a lovely evening that culminated in our little present exchange. I got Matt Spore and the first expansion pack that I didn't even know existed until Saturday. I didn't give him both right away though, I gave him the game and then later when he had begun to install it the box gave birth to the second all of a sudden. Matt did such a great job of presents, he's really good at it. He gave me the most beautiful pair of silver dangle-y earrings that are in the shape of pine cones which I have worn today and make me feel all winter like. He also got me THE cutest bag. It looks like a mini bowling ball bag, its even made by Brunswick, and it holds my ds. Or rather it would if I had a dslite. I can still get my older ds in there if I try but I just love it soooo much. Finally he got me one of the greatest games ever made! Dragon Quest IV has been on the top of my list of favorite games since my childhood. Now I have something to play on the very long plane rides to LA on Friday. Thank you Sweetie!

I am trying to keep up with last year and so I have dubbed this week Christmas baking week. The lab simultaneously loves and curses it. This morning I made dark chocolate peppermint brownies. mmmmmmm, I love peppermint! I'm really excited too because Matt and I are having Dan and Caroline over for dessert on Wednesday. I haven't completely decided what I'm making but it will include Mexican hot chocolate.

Thanksgiving (wasn't that long ago)

I should be doing something constructive around the house right now but I was reminded today that my life must be incredibly boring since I no long post about it.  Well...thats true but I'll bore you all anyways. 

I finally remembered to snag Matt's camera and get the pictures off of it which, as it turns out, there are only a couple so I will have to bug other people to get pictures.  Thanksgiving was a lovely day, it is one of my favorite holidays because it centers almost 100% around food.  Yay food!  As always I made way too much food but this time I also encouraged others to make way too much food.  Since we were having mostly internationals over for dinner I made all the traditional foods; mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, candied yams, turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie.  mmmm, I'm almost hungry again.  I also whipped up a fantastic cheese platter, because really if there isn't a cheese platter, why bother?  I actually didn't make everything.  Nathan made the 10lbs of potatoes and the giant casserole of stuffing and Matt made the gorgeous turkey.  I had planned to make it myself but in hindsight watching the Modern Marvels about turkeys on Thanksgiving Eve was not my best move ever.  Luckily Matt is a trooper and stepped up to job.  I read an article in Bon Appetit that said that brining is so out of fashion now and all the cool people are salting their turkeys.  Since I'm a cool person I had to salt ours, plus its about twenty million times easier than brining.  I made a tasty salt rub with lots of herbs and Matt I coached him how to wash the turkey and then salt it but I really couldn't bring myself to handle the bird after watching how amazing they are. .  I guess the magazine people were right because everyone who had had turkey before said it was the best they'd ever had.  Catarina, who dislikes turkey, even asked if she could get some to take home.  Go Team Matt and Kelly!  It was a super exhausting endevour but everyone had a great time except for Catarina's husband who had what she called a Portuguese super cold.  I put two pictures of Matt's amazing turkey and one where you can kind of see the apartment and the awesome pumpkin pie I made.

Reviews

One of my loyal readers has pointed out that I have yet to publish reviews on the two live shows that Matt and I have recently seen. So I'll put off the Thanksgiving post and let you all know what I thought.

First, we went to see DINOSAURS!!!, for Matt's birthday. I saw the videos on youtube and I thought that I was prepared for the amazing-ness but I was wrong. The dinos were life sized, which, when it comes to the bigger ones means they were towering over us. They were also ridiculously loud. In a good way. It was way too much fun. The best part was when the boy next to me reassured me not to worry because they were not "real dinosaurs". It was quite adorable, even more so when I thanked him for his knowledge and he wanted to let me know that it was twice as impressive since he was only in the fourth grade so just imagine how much smarter he was going to get. lol!

The next show we went to was The Tran-Siberian Orchestra. I can't even put into words. No wait, I can. It was kind of like going to an 80's hair metal band concert. There were pyrotechnics and lasers and it was really loud. The woman playing the violin was simply amazing. How she didn't get her hair caught in the violin or bow I will never know. She rocked it like she was playing a guitar and she ran all over the place. The show was about twice as long as we thought it was going to be. The first half was this really beautiful story about Christmas that made me cry. I really thought that was the whole show but then they came out and introduced the orchestra and started talking about the "second half". The second half was more of a rock concert, no narration. I completely recommend it if you can get tickets. Matt and I got t-shirts after the show. His has a castle high in the mountains and mine has an awesome wizard in it doing some cool magicky stuff. Both full of awesomeness.