Christmas with the L's

On Sunday, we celebrated an early Christmas with Adam's family as we'll be in La Crosse/La Crescent for Christmas weekend this year. It was a really nice family evening. It was Chester first Christmas celebration with them, as last year he was staying with my parent's for the week when we celebrated.

We started out with a few snacks and apps before opening gifts.

Cake Balls! I had a few too many of these little guys and felt sick later on...

Adam, Chester and Robin

Then we opened presents! Chester is the youngest, so he went first :) He sure loves eating opening presents.

He's transfixed by the bow and name tag

Getting a good angle for paper ripping!

With his new personalized travel bag!

Onto his next gift

A treat finder puzzle toy. He was really good at it too!

Chester liked opening his presents so much that he tried to help everyone else open theirs too!

"Need some help with that mom?"

For steak branding!

Twins sweatshirt for all those cool weather spring and fall games

Robin with her gifts from us

A new sweater for me

Ice fishing pole for Curt from us

We gave Aaron a home brew kit

But my favorite gift of the night was a pretty new purse! Check out the website where Robin got it - Glenda Gies. I'm drooling over a bunch of purses on there!
http://www.glendagies.com/productsg.aspx?txtCatID=280&DepID=1

It's so pretty!

Then we had a nice meal together of salad, garlic bread, lemon risotto, scallops and lobster. Delicious. Even if I was starting to feel a little sick from the 3 cake balls I ate....

I rested a bit before we left. Then, we all checked out stockings. I got a cosmetic bag to match my pretty new purse. Adam got the bait caster he's been wanting, in a lighter form. Even Chester had his own stocking with a rope toy inside!

He's so spoiled!

All 4 of us with our stockings

Fam photo

 It was a great early Christmas celebration with the L's!

Weekend Recap: Les Mis, Vikings Game, early Christmas

We had a busy weekend, but luckily, it didn't start out that way. We enjoyed a leisurely evening at home on Friday night watching The Help. I read the book over a year ago, and really liked the movie.

It was glorious to sleep in on Saturday morning. In the afternoon, we dropped Chester off with Adam's parents. It was so nice that they could watch him until Sunday afternoon. I think he enjoyed his little sleep over.

Then we went home and got ready for our night out. Back in July, Adam's anniversary gift to me was that he would take me to a play or musical of my choice. I chose Les Miserables at the Orpheum. We went to dinner at D'Amico Kitchen which was conveniently right across the street from the theater. Luckily, we allowed a lot of time to get there because downtown was crazy with Hollidazzle Parade crowds. Our usual parking ramp was full which was annoying because it took us 20 minutes to go about 3 blocks to get to it.

I loved the atmosphere downstairs at D'Amico Kitchen. It was a lot of white with grey and black accents and my personal favorite, a chandelier. We were at a big table for 4, which they kept apologizing to us for, but we loved it. We got to sit right next to each other on one side which was really romantic. I had a yummy Bellini and we split spicy calamari. Yum. For our mains, I had the Swordfish Piccata with Pantelleria capers, garlic and lemon. It was delicious! I was not so much a fan of the wilted spinach it was served on top of though. I'm just not into wilted members of the lettuce family. I was glad I got it, but had it said on the menu it was served like that I may have chosen something else. Oh well.

Swordfish Piccata

Adam had the Grilled Beef Ribeye with horseradish mascarpone, and asparagus-potato salad. It was more of a bacon and potato side though. The horseradish mascarpone was AMAZING. I snuck a bite or five of it.

Ribeye with mascarpone horseradish

After dinner, we had plenty of time to head over to the Orpheum. Our dinner reservation was for 6 pm and the show was at 8. I'm glad I planned it that way though so we weren't rushed. You just never know.

Les Mis was well done. But it was long. Really long. I just do not have that kind of attention span. Plus it was really dark. I don't know what I was expecting, I mean there is the title and the fact that I've read the book (in French and English). I enjoyed it but I would never need or want to see it again. I think I prefer the more colorful musicals with more ensembles.

After the show was over at 11, we stopped at Sweeney's Saloon in St. Paul for Laura's birthday gathering. We hadn't planned on being able to attend, but since we didn't have to rush home for Chester, we were able to stop. I'm glad it worked out.

Alan, birthday girl and me

We were exhausted when we got home at 12:30. Of course I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 2:30... A good book may have had something to do with that.

Sunday was another busy day. We left a little after 11 am for the Vikings game. It's so nice to be able to be walking in the stadium half an hour after leaving your house. We didn't have the greatest seats (my first time in the upper deck) and of course they lost, but it was still fun. You see, I don't actually want them to win any more games this season (hello #2 draft pick!). So once you're cheering for them to lose, watching Vikings games actually becomes tolerable.

I brought the Cannon with to take a few photos. I had read online you couldn't bring in your camera bag or really big lenses. I just walked in with the camera around my neck and another lens in my purse. It worked out fine and was actually less hassle than carrying the camera bag around.

View from our seats - it looks worse than it was

The new Metrodome roof is actually pretty cool

I like to play a little game of "Where's Ziggy?" every time we go

Bresus

I was stalking the sidelines for Harvin and Webb

Adam and I, self portrait with the point-and-shoot

After the thrashing was over, we headed to Curt and Robin's to celebrate Christmas. We were excited to see Chester again. It's hard to be away from the cute little guy. He really got into opening his presents this year. And by opening them, I mean ripping off little chunks of paper and trying to eat it. He's adorable.

Chester's adorable monogrammed travel bag!

More to come tomorrow...

Naughty Puppy Thursday: The Christmas Tree

Ever since we put the Christmas tree up a few weeks ago, Chester has been fascinated by it. He can often be found hanging out in the front entry by it (and not just when he's sitting by the door to go to the bathroom). He'll just sit and stare at it. He has a favorite ornament that is just his height. It's a glass ornament of a large red car full of Christmas gifts. I don't know what the fascination is, because there are other ornaments up that are his height. It's just his favorite I guess. I've caught him licking it a few times.

Chester with his favorite ornament

Chester also likes to go hide under the Christmas tree. He's figured out that he's just short enough that he can stand up underneath it. It's in a corner, so if he goes under it we can't get him out.

Chester hanging out under the tree

 It's pretty cute though, and it could be much worse. He could be rough with the tree or worse, try to pee on it! The only thing we can't do is put gifts under it. Apparently Chester thinks all presents are for him.

Chester sits on Santa's Lap

I completely forgot to mention that at Santa Paws (for MN Midwest Pug Rescue), Chester had his first encounter with the big man in red - Santa Claus! He had his photo taken with Santa by Modern Life Photo. Modern Life Photo is at a lot of the pug events taking photos to raise money for the pugs. It's great.

ANYWAY, here are the photos!

Chester was rather scared at first. Adam plopped him down on Santa's lap for the photo, and then walked to the side to get out of the way. I stood beside the photographer and there were 2 other people to the left of the photographer making noise and banging on a pan to get his attention. I think all the commotion freaked him out!

"What's happening? Where'd my dad go?"

"SCARED! Come get me mom!"

"Okay, so maybe this Santa guy isn't so bad after all.
Will you come get me now?"

I think Chester may have been a little traumatized by the experience.
It kind of reminds me of all the hilarious photos of little kids crying on Santa's lap. I'm so happy we got photos with Santa though!