Happy Birthday Matt! - Part 1 of 3

It is Matt’s 32^nd birthday! We planned a fun weekend to celebrate, but his birthday is on a Wednesday this year. I asked him what he wanted to do and offered multiple birthday scenarios – night out at one of our favorite restaurants with friends, a date night at the local high school play – a Charlie Brown play, go see a movie – any movie he wants, even that new Wolf movie, or a night at home. He chose a low-key night at home with some of our closest friends. So, we had a chili and game night at our house featuring our made-up whodunit game - Suspect. Each person emailed me a fun fact about themselves that no one else knew and I made up little notebooks with the facts along with some fabricated facts (or at least I thought). We then asked the ‘suspects’ questions in turns and then wrote down our accusations. Melissa was the best detective (most correct accusations) and Katie was the best suspect (least suspected). Who would have thought Katie’s grandfather invented the glass eye!?! Since Matt is thirty-TWO, everything was in two’s. We had two kinds of chili, 2 kinds of margaritas & probably 32 kinds of beerJ. After dinner we all sang Matt ‘Happy Birthday’ and ate some cookie birthday cake while we sat around the TV watching the Winter Olympics. We had a lot of fun commentating the Curling and cheering on Sean White as he won the Gold. And NBC’s lack of bleeping-out. It was a fun night and great way to kick-off the birthday festivities!

Christmas ain't over till the beer is gone

Finally, after 2 months of search and consumption, I have finished the Tour de Christmas Beer 2009. For those that don't know, the motivation for the vast collection of holiday cheer came via last year's Christmas present from Melonie; a book all about Christmas beer. So with the help of my brother Jay, best friend Marc, and father-in-law Harry, I was able to procure and sample 33 different Christmas beers ranging in style from Belgian Strong Ale to ESB to Saison. My favorites though came from the classic holiday style, "Winter Warmer." Topping the list was Anchor's Our Special Ale, followed by Ipswich WInter Ale, Wyerbacher Winter Ale, and Landcaster Winter Warmer Ale.
In my opinion these beers embody the winter ale style, with unique flavor profiles containing chocolate, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Thanks again to Jay, who provided 50% of the winners. In all the adventure was quite successful, although I may be hard pressed to do it again. Although we did see there is a winter beer fest in Pennsylvania every year...

2010!

To kick-off the new year, we went up to the cabin in Georgia to spend time with family and good friends. There was a lot of fun, music, and cold cold weather. We had good times. We went to Athens, Helen and back - did not eat German food, checked out the townsquare in Dahlonega, had a steak party, cheered on the Gators, played dueling ukes, and some good quotes from the weekend. I will need some help with this, but here are my favorites:

Matt's fb status: Matthew Stanton is impressed with Kourtney's ability to not drive off the mountain...

Shawn: (from the loft) What are those things that cover your legs?
Brian (trying not to look up): Uhhh, pants...

Kourtney (looking down at Blackberry): I don't LIKE that, how do I UN-like that??

Harry (playing 'Would You Rather'): - nevermind, I'm not going to post that, but you know what I am talking about

Katie: You can't going skiing next year for Christmas, you would miss all the fun!

Matt: (jokingly) I believe a broner begets a brorgy. The broner quote came directly from Brian while I was attempting to record my yule log for next year. In fact, all of you messed it up. Christmas 2010 is officially ruined.

Shawn: I wish you could have been there in the (leather) store with us, Matt, I think it would have strenthened the bromance between you, Brian, and I.

I am not sure who said the following, it may have been everyone -

'Look, it's Capt. Dickle!' or 'Guess who got Dickled' or 'Oh, Dickle...'

'Dude, I totally lost my broner'

'Who gets shot on New Year's?!?'

Now onto 2010!! Time to think about New Year's Resolutions and goals for the year. I have my usual goals, like exercising regularly, eating healthier, reading more (real literature, not scientific literature), writing more (you'd be shocked at the amount of time I spend writing based upon my apparent disdain of proper grammar in this blog :), expanding my cooking skills, get more dives under my belt, revisit my golf game, more knitting, spinning, and sewing projects, etc, etc. But these I consider to be things I will always work on, not just for a year, but lifelong goals. For this year, I want to try a new goal and hopefully it will stick for years to come. I even have a motto for it - 'Waste not, Want not'.

I know it's cliche, but I think it just what I need right now. I have always been resourceful and creative, especially in the kitchen (no thyme, no problem), but I want to try just a little bit harder. I want to really use what I already have. And more importantly, really enjoy what I already have. So, what does this mean?

First, the most precious commodity of all - TIME. I will make more of an effort not to waste time, but to use it effectively, because this is also the year to get things done! This does not mean I won't relax and have fun. It means I will set schedules and goals each week and strive to be more productive.

Next, I want to use what I have. For instance, I want to get through as much of my yarn stash as possible this year (I know Matt will love reading this). I am a known yarn hoarder. There, I said it... I will still occasionally buy yarn if I need it for an ongoing project or if I absolutely cannot resisit and it may be my only opportunity to secure some really fabulous yarn (maybe I should just say 'exclusions apply'), but I will still make a concerted effort to use what I have. This also goes for books, games, clothing, and other randomness around the house.

Lastly, this will help us know what we 'want not', so we can get rid of things we do not need or want. And finally have an organized and clutter-free home, which is the final and ultimate goal for the year.

Top Chef Weekend

We just had a Top Chef Weekend. For those you who do not watch Top Chef (shudder), it is a show in which some of the best chefs in the country compete against each other for the title of Top Chef and win lots of money and prizes. This is no Hell's Kitchen, these guys are professionals and can actually cook beautifully and creatively. For Christmas, Momma Stanton got us the Top Chef Quick Fire book and Matt picked out a few recipes to try out for the weekend. On Friday, he made mussels in an orange and fennel sauce with pan seared scallops over angel hair. The next night he made a Paella. And they were both fabulous and delicious. Looking forward to more Top Chef Weekends to come!

Maybe we will even have our own Quick Fire challenge one of these weekends :)

Happy Holidays

We had our first holiday season as a married couple this year and got to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in our home. We had a lot of fun cooking, decorating, and merry-making.


For Thanksgiving, we tried something new, an oil-less turkey fryer. You get a tasty turkey with crispy skin without all the oil and potential explosions. We spent most of the day outside on our patio, which is always nice. I also tried making cheesecake for the first time, a pumpkin cheesecake, and it was delicious. Samantha helped me with a lot of the cooking. We finished the weekend off by going to the FSU game. We had great seats and got to visit the F Club (thank you, Kourtney & Brian). Overall, it was a great weekend.

We started the Christmas decorations early in December to get in the spirit. Matt did an outstanding job and we were definitely the best Christmas house in the neighborhood! Maybe best in all of Archer... We also watched a lot of Christmas movies, I will have to have Matt list out all of the Christmas movies we watched this year. Sooo many. Right now, alll I can think of is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Santa Conquers the Martians. We also saw the Christmas Carol at the Hippodrome with Momma Stanton for our Christmas preview weekend. And we made Christmas cookies ala Martha Stewart, yummy.

For Christmas Eve, we tried our hand at Prime Rib (Roast Beast) and had a lovely dinner with family and our bestest friends (Marc, Jenny, and Momma Pepin). And then, we received one of the best gifts ever (not the Food Network Magazine subscription or the copy of The Annotated Alice or the Killer Bunnies game, which are also some of the best gifts ever) - Mom made us a book of The Stanton Journal. It has all the pictures and entries, and it is awesome. Now, we need to make sure we keep up on our blogging for next year. Then, the Christmas Elves came and delivered our pajamas, so it was time for bed. Chirstmas Day was fun and relaxing. We just hung out most of the day in our pj's and had fun opening up presents and watching more movies. My BFF, Erin, came to visit later that weekend and we had nice couple of relaxing days together. Always a treat! And of course more Christmas movies and we opened up the Killer Bunnies game. It's a funny, complicated, little game, but good times, nonetheless.

We are very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends and we had a beautiful holiday season. We will always remember this year. Our first year as Mr. & Mrs. Stanton and our first holiday season in our home. It has been a very special year for us.

Bon Appétit

I have been cooking. Haven't posted about it in awhile. But rest assured, I have been cooking. Some of my recent feats have been chocolate chip cookies, mannicotti, spaghetti and meatballs, pork stew with parsnips and butternut squash, apple cake, and that's about all I can think of right now. Sunday night's meal was Boeuf a la bourguignonne (AKA beef burgundy). It's a dish I have been wanting to make for a long time - just never got around to it. I was inspired to make it after finally seeing Julie & Julia this past Saturday night. Each of them make the dish in the movie and I decided it was time to give it a try. It is not a terribly difficult dish. It just requires some extra steps and care to develop the rich flavor. I also had the opportunity to use my Le Creuset dutch oven - always a pleasure to use.

Fall

Fall is the busiest time of year for us (especially me), as evidenced by the lack of blogging... It's a new school year, a new football season, and a new holiday season. And we have been making the best of it all!

I have been busy with my teaching assistant activities as well as my own course load. But, I still made time for fun. I took another pottery class - actually it was the same pottery class I took over the summer, but still lots of fun. I've also been spending extra time on campus, running. No, not running gels or samples (which I have been doing :), actual running. I even did my first 5K in October. Matt and I are training for our first half-marathon - 13.1 miles. A little scary...

In October, we celebrated Mom's 50th birthday at Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We had a lot of surprises for her and she had a great time. To kick-off the weekend, we went to the Polynesian Luau Dinner - they had great food and fire dancing. What more could you want! Afterwards, we went monorail bar-hopping. Not sure why we never thought of it before... We just hopped on the monorail and hit the bars at each hotel. It was a lot of fun. Will definitely do it again. The next day we surprised her with Kelley's 50th custom shirts - each unique in design with photos and captions - and we did the F&W Fest. One of our best ever!

We also recently joing the Gainesville SCUBA Club. First time in several years Gainesville had a SCUBA Club and we attended the inaugural meeting *exciting*. They have a meeting and an outing once a month. This month we went to Devil's Den - haven't been there since our check-out dives. But unlike our check-out dives, I carried 2 tanks! It was a short distance, but I did. The SCUBA workouts have been paying off :) This past week, for the second Club meeting, we attended a spearfishing seminar. Not sure how I feel about spearfishing yet, but Matt is excited about it. He wants the JBL 53" sawed-off magnum speargun. Maybe Santa will bring him one.

As for football season, this is my 11th consecutive year of season football tickets! So, we've been hitting the home games. And for our away game of the season we went to the SC game. We took a bus trip to Columbia, SC with the Fighting Gators Touchdown Club to cheer on the Gators. Always a great time! Matt has been busy with his Fantasy team. He will have to comment on that as I don't know much about it. He did say today 'fantasy football is the bane of my existance' - so I do not think he is having a great season.

And the holidays... We are hosting Thanksgiving this year. We are still finalizing the menu and gameplan. it will be good times. We will start decorating the house for Christmas soon. And Matt has been getting together MANY Christmas movies for us to watch this season. And for New Year's, we will go up to Georgia with some friends and visit the family. Can't wait!!