Happy Happy Holidays!

Friday I hosted a Hanukkah party at John and my tiny apartment. I made latkes with apple sauce and sour cream and little beef smokies. We also had pumpkin pie and our friend Doug brought some moonshine that tasted just like apple pie! We played dreidel and everyone got gift bags with their own dreidel and some gelt. I tried to tell the reasons behind everything but it was pretty rowdy mostly the whole time. I lit the menorah, said the prayer (ha! how often do you hear me say that?) and we all ate m&ms. Over all it was a howling success! We also played some board games and Halo 3. :)

The next day of course the kitchen was trashed - oil everywhere (it is, after all, all about the oil) but John was a tremendous help in getting everything clean again. And despite being a bit hung over the next morning I was well enough after an egg and some water to drive myself to work. I was glad too, 'cause I got to ride the human gyro on our float in the parade!

Then Saturday night was my mom's surprise party! She turned 53 Friday the 7th (Pearl Harbor Day). Until Saturday she'd never had a surprise party thrown for her, but I get ahead of myself. Here's the story:
My sister Brittany - the middle one, I think 26 now - was talking to our mom on the phone. She mentioned something about being in Denver over her birthday and my sister said, "Oh, you're going to be out of town on your birthday?" She said yes, my sister said, "Oh." And then found out that my mom changed the date of her flight so she would be in town for her birthday. So Brittany figured my mom thought she was planning something special, so we did!

I called everyone and reserved the room at the restaurant; it was La Maison - very nice. My other sister also came in from out of town with her small children, along with my dad. I wrote on my mom's calendar that she would be having dinner with me this night so she wouldn't make other plans. I dressed up after work and picked her up a little after 7:00 after making sure everyone else was already at the restaurant. Brittany and I decorated the room beautifully beforehand, if I do say so myself. When we got there I gave the host her name and he said that all the tables downstairs were booked up so 'would we mind sitting upstairs?' Well sure, why not?! We finally made it up the two flights (my mom is doing well though after her back surgery) and to the room. When he opened the door she first saw Brittany holding my other sister Jessica's baby. Some of her friends and others were there as well. She was speechless! For a moment I thought she might faint! She was, needless to say, extremely surprised. :D

The dinner was amazing if quite expensive (Brittany also had the waiters black out the prices on my mom's menu so she wouldn't order according to price). They were very accommodating at the restaurant. We stayed and ate and talked and my mom opened her presents from about 7:30 until after 11:00. Let me just note here, ostrich can be wonderfully tasty!

The whole night was great. I'm going to try to figure out how to post some of the pictures on here. My weekend was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. *sigh*