Cold Italian Birthday

Monday, January 6th was supposed to be the day that my mom's side of the family would celebrate my grandpa's birthday at Yarusso's for dinner. Instead, it was unbearably cold and we decided to do it that Wednesday.

Yarusso's has a deal where you get a free birthday entree on the first Monday of your birthday month with a paid entree. Yarusso's was nice enough to honor the birthday deal for our party on Wednesday. Even though we got together for my grandpa's 79th birthday, M and I both got to take advantage for our birthdays too.
We had a good turnout but we can never get everyone together at once with everyone's schedule and location and a family member having the flu didn't help either.
I forgot to take pictures but fortunately, M took some of us while we were all chatting away. Can't wait until next month when we get to go there with the other side of the family!

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The Big 4-0

M's birthday was Sunday, January 5th. He turned 40 years young. M didn't want anything big for his birthday. In fact, the only thing he really wanted to do was to have a meal and watch football. Sounded perfect to me.

The morning of M's birthday was super cold.

We went to Pinstripes in Edina for brunch. M had never been there for brunch before but he enjoyed it. I don't know know why it but it felt very adult to be celebrating a birthday over brunch. We had a great table right next to the window overlooking some of the trees that are a part of Centennial Lakes. In the tree, there was a cardinal right next to us and he looked so beautiful with the green and white background.

There's the birthday boy!

Afterwards, we went home, got back into our cozies and watched football all day long. A low-key birthday but exactly what he wanted. Happpy Birthday, Michael. You were 30 when we started dating and look, you're 10 years older and we're still dating. Just kidding, Nietzsche. Love you!

 

 

 

 

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NYE

New Year's Eve was very low-key and they way it probably should be for people our age. Our friends Chris and Tanya came over with their son Asher and we had food and some drinks while listening to music and watching some TV. Despite being low-key, we all stayed up late with them leaving at 2:40 am. How'd you spend your New Year's Eve?

 

 

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7th Annual Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party

It was the latest it could possibly be to have this party, Week 17, the very last game of the year.  The 7th Annual Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party was held on Sunday, December 29th.  The weather the day before was in the 40's and on the of the party, not so much.

We woke up to around zero degrees and it would continue to get colder throughout the morning.  It was the wind chill that was really bad.  Good thing I had long underwear on under my jeans and wind pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt and my jacket, two scarves, two pairs of gloves and two hats because I needed it all.  If we weren't all true Minnesotans already, we sure were after Sunday. Too bad the feet heaters in my boots didn't work very well.  That's what you get when you ruin your feet ice skating as a kid when it was too cold or you stayed out too long.  

I kind of laugh at the temperature now thinking about what we just experienced in the last several days

We got out to the lot right at 8 am and fortunately we had a couple of tents that we put together and tied sides on them to block the wind out as best as we could.  The tent attempted to leave the ground numerous times but our group is smart enough and parked a truck next to the tent and tied them down to it.

With the weather as cold as it was and the fact that this was the last game we'd be tailgating for at the Metrodome and it was a hard ticket to get, we just wasn't sure how many people would actually show up for our party.  Turns out, a lot considering the circumstances.  To my best guess, we had about 50 people come out. We did our best to stay warm with our tents, multiple sunflower heaters, layers and drinks.

Cherrie's siblings - minus one

Double the hat, double the scarf

Our Lions crew representin'

Our last tailgate and our last Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party at the Metrodome, ever.

It would obviously be our last game in the Metrodome ever as well.  It was a little hard for me to realize that since it was also the end of the season so it didn't seem odd or sad at first because I knew I wouldn't be coming back again this year.  Maybe it will sink in next season when we're not there.

We typically play great against Detroit at the dome and this day was no exception.  The Vikings won, 14-13 with Cordarrelle Patterson scoring both touchdowns, one rushing (50 yards) and one receiving. 

Last SKOL Line

All the security in yellow coming out around the field

Last game moment- Vikings win

After the game, there was a 10 minute intermission before Matt Birk, Robert Smith, Adrian Peterson and Bud Grant addressed the crowd and their final farewells to the dome and the fans in the dome.  

I'll be writing about my personal experiences at and with the dome later this month.

Goodbye, Metrodome!  

Special Access

As an appreciation to Vikings season ticket holders, we were able to visit the Metrodome the evening of Saturday, December 28th, the day before the last game in the dome, ever.  We were allowed to walk on the field, have our pictures taken next to the goal posts and on the 50 yard line.  You could sit on the Vikings bench and tour the locker room.  Besides having our photos taken, we did all of the above.  The locker room was the big attraction with the longest line.  They did not allow you to take any pictures in the locker room and there security people all over the room.  The room was very small and I can only imagine they will have a state-of-the-art new locker room in the new stadium.  Even the locker room in TCF Stadium will be a huge upgrade. Everyone's uniforms and gear were already in place for tomorrow's game.  Most players had two to three pairs of shoes in their locker space but Adrian Peterson had 12-13 pairs of shoes.  

After the open house portion, there was an interview with Vikings alumni including Matt Blair, Bob Lurtsema, Randall McDaniel and Robert Smith, hosted by Paul Allen.  

At the end of the night, we each walked out with a commemorative poster of the All-Metrodome Team.   

Christmas Time

Considering that I started shopping for Christmas here and there in September, had most of my shopping done by the end of October and had the majority of my presents wrapped the week before Thanksgiving, I have to say it was one of the most stressful holiday seasons I've had.  Why?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was that Thanksgiving came so late this year and I feel like I lost a week.  One thing I know is that I didn't get to do any Christmas cookie baking or send out Christmas cards.  Hopefully next year.

Before I packed up all the presents to go to other people's houses, I took a picture of our tree.  We have a skinny tree and have so many ornaments on it now that I think I need a bigger one.

The sparkly motion is compliments of Google.

We held our immediate family Christmas on Saturday, December 21st.  We got together in the afternoon at my mom's house.  Her house was decorated beautifully and her tree is always spectacular.

My dad in the ornament

My mom, sister and I all planned to dress the same like dorks.  We found these awesome snowflake sweatshirts on clearance for $3 last January at Sears and thought we need to rock these for Christmas.  Not only did we dress the same, we also had the guys wear goofy/ugly Christmas themed shirts and to top it off, we all wore Santa or elf headbands.  I love being cheesy.

We decided to not do a sit-down meal and did appetizers instead.  We each brought a couple of appetizers.  I made a couple of dips and these bacon wrapped lil smokies with dark brown sugar.  Everyone loves them. 

We opened presents afterwards and it took us over 4 hours.  We open up each individually so we can see what everyone got.  I love doing it that way with my family but it did get a little long. We all received very nice gifts and while that isn't what Christmas is about, you could feel all the love in the room. 

Someone may have had chocolate on his face

During our present opening, we all went around the room and said a memory about my dad that they have that was nice or funny.  I was sobbing uncontrollably for most of it but I was able to get a laugh in there when I told them of my memory.

For Christmas Eve, we went to my aunt Terri and uncle Ken's house in Wisconsin.  It would have been my Gramma's 76th birthday.  She always loved cardinals and earlier that morning, I saw nine cardinals in the yard.  I'm thinking in some way it had to do with her.

I made the bacon wrapped lil smokies again and I made a bunch of festive little donuts for both my family's gathering and M's family.

My mom's side of the family is not really the picture-taking type of family but somehow we kind of coordinated pictures of groups of people with my grandpa.  We had so many people lined up with cameras that not everyone is looking at the camera nor are they necessarily clear, but the point is we made the time to do it.

Grandpa and his kids (my mom, aunts and uncle)

Grandpa and his grandkids (my cousins minus two)

Grandpa and his grandkids and great-grandkids

Grandpa, my mom, me and my sister

My aunt's real flocked tree

The cat I almost took home years ago, Bobbi.

Christmas Day was quiet.  M and I opened presents from each other in the morning. This was the 10th Christmas M and I have spent together.  Santa is a little wacky in our household as you can see by some of the items I got in my stocking.  I got some fantastic gifts from M but my favorite gift that I gave him was pizza from Giordano's in Chicago.  I had two pizzas shipped here since he/we haven't stopped talking about how good it was since our Chicago trip last August.  

That's supposed to be Adrian Peterson.  He's called a Bleacher Creature. 

M gets me a goofy t-shirt each year

We ended up lazing around for the rest of the day on Christmas and didn't do anything.  I think this has become our new tradition as we didn't do anything last year for Christmas and I'm ok with that.  I wanted to go to the cemetery but with fresh snow and me just being outright lazy, I didn't go.  

I hope all of you had a fantastic Christmas spent with your loved ones.