Buh-bye 2009!

Happy almost-New Year!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had a really great day with my family. We had some plans for both Christmas Eve and Christmas day that had to be tweaked at the last minute, but everything was great even so. It was a lesson in flexibility for me lol.

We had a pot-luck style dinner planned for Christmas Eve as well as some last-minute baking that had to be done. I had brownies baking in the oven and my Mom went to turn on the stove to start cooking and when she did, there was a blue spark and then the stove died. Oven and all. We live in a rental, so the first thing we thought to do is call the Landlord. But what can be done on Christmas Eve? We figured he had plans as well as we did, but we still called and spoke to his wife. As we thought, there was nothing that could be done until the day after Christmas, so she offered us the option of using the stove in one of their other rental units a few miles away.

I removed the almost-done brownies from the oven and still had another batch to cook, so we got together a few things we needed the stove to cook and drove to the other house. Thankfully we were able to finish up the remainder of our cooking in crock pots. We had a nice dinner and later on I finished decorating all of the gifts I had wrapped a couple weeks ago while we watched a movie.

In the words of one of my favorite photographers Jasmine Star, a post is not complete without a photo. So, here are a few:

The stove that saved the day!

Our kitchen-away-from-home

The brownies that almost weren't

Last glimpse of the Christmas tree

We had a big breakfast cooking on the electric griddle and then opened our presents. We were all so blessed this year! I got so many great things, one of them being a sewing machine. I was (am) so thrilled with it! I already have a list of all the things I want to make. I had Home Economics in school and remember the basics, but I am definitely still a beginner so I will start with the easy projects first. I will post about my first 'creation' tomorrow :)

Timber's tired from all the gift un-wrapping

For Christmas dinner my Dad was supposed to make a lasagna. Our new plan was to carry all of the ingredients, pots & pans, and utensils over to the other house to cook and then bring everything back for our dinner. But, that would have meant hours for him at the empty rental house on Christmas day with nowhere to sit and nothing to do while waiting. We decided to cancel the dinner until our stove was fixed and we ate leftover pizza strips instead. It may not have been the big meal we planned, but we made the best of it. And, we actually decided that we liked the simplicity of not having to cook and clean up a big meal on Christmas, so we are going to have a quick and easy meal again next Christmas too! Starting new traditions :) 

Well, this post is getting a bit long and I could still keep on typing, but then we would be getting ready for the arrival of 2011 lol. We ended up getting a nice, newer stove the day after Christmas so we are having our lasagna tonight and we're going to ring in the New Year at home.  Nice & safe and off the roads with the crazy/drunk drivers. It's also a full moon, so the looney toons will be out too! lol I'll spend my evening working on a new layout for my Mom's blog, and possibly one for mine too (big fun, I know!). I hope you have a wonderful and safe night and a happy and prosperous New Year in 2010!!