Happy New Year!

Allow me to now wish one and all a belated Happy New Year. This is meant to balance out the early Happy New Year that was hinted at prior to the actual holiday. In my mind, this somehow balances out to a traditional and on-time greeting. Enjoy!

Monkey and I spent a low-key evening with the puppy dog, enjoying a tasty steak dinner, watching Anderson Cooper and Kathy Grifiin / Ryan Seacrest, bravely staying awake long enough to see the Central Standard New Year enter, and then heading off to bed. Reasons for this include a lack of any planning for the evening, a general lack of enthusiasm for the holiday, and a genuine East Coast head cold that we each received as a post-Christmas gift that we brought back with us.

The trip home was mostly good. It was great to see my wild men nephews (now five and three (and a half)), my bro and sister-in-law (a fun trip to Vaccaro's and Hampden after dinner at Tio Pepe's (sorry I was a jerk for those forty-five minutes or so...)), mom and dad. It was awesome to be treated to tenth row seats at the Ravens-Jaguars game Sunday night by Monkey's bro and sister-in-law! Good to see my in-laws and other family! And, in a drive-by, a great lunch with La Fashionista and P.

Beyond those highlights, I enjoyed putting together and playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with the kiddos, setting up for and taking the annual family photo by the tree, scrapple for breakfast, and Mom's cookies and pie. By the way, monthly beard check = getting kind of freaky long.