New Years Eve Celebration

Early in December, one of my favorite local wineries posted an event on Facebook for a New Years Eve celebration called "but first... Champagne". Excuse me, where do I sign up?? It took some convincing to get Kyle on board, but it happened! He didn't want to enjoy any of the champagne (and technically it's not since the grapes are made here, but close enough, sparkling wine doesn't sound as fun, right?) but I made the executive decision to get him the champagne ticket as well because if he didn't like it I could think of someone who would drink it for him. ME.

There were six sparkling wines/champagnes that they paired with individual tastings. Roughly at the top of every half hour a new drink was poured and more food served.

Somewhere along the way, Kyle and I learned to take a picture with his head a ways away from the camera and mine closer so it doesn't look like his head is 3x larger than mine (it is). Photo win!

The decor in the winery for the event is probably what it'll look like in heaven: chandeliers, glittery signs and cutouts, all the sparkle.

The winery owner also demonstrated his sabering skills throughout the night. At one point a couple of guests tried their hand at it, and I actually thought they were going to leave in an ambulance with a thumb on ice. Don't drink and saber you guys.

There's some blueberry cheese on this plate below and if you haven't had any before, what are you waiting for?! My new favorite thing.

Kyle and I purchased two bottles of the champagne at the end of the evening and this is one of them. It tasted like summer in a flute. 

This is the second one we purchased. yum yum.

Fun night with a fun guy. And the best part is that it went from 4-8pm, we counted down to the new year in France as well as Ireland, and I very well could've gone to bed when it was all said and done, but instead I was a trooper and we went out to one of Kyle's friends after. When I say I was a trooper, I mean, I drank more Champagne and we were still in bed by 11:30pm. Whatever, we're adults. We can do what we want. 

What's a Christmas-gram? I WANT ONE!

So the holidays have come and gone. Of course that means that I'm in a deep dark wine & cheese induced depression. A whole year to wait until the next holiday season. Alas, it was a good one.

Christmas was fabulous, as usual. Santa let me have some extra time off this year, from making toys of course (what a jolly ol' saint of a man) so I was able to do some celebration Christmas Eve & Christmas day with my family and Taylor's family. Taylor's Christmas was a drunken mess, as usual, (mess=an amazing amount of fun and merriment) with more presents stacked under one tree then I've ever seen total in my life. Christmas Day we spent with my family back home, which was a good time. I got some great new appliances that I needed for my new apartment and some cool things to decorate it with, along with some clothes.

Of course, the most important day came after Christmas. My quarter of a century birthday. 25. Big deal. Or at least I made it out to be a big deal. Taylor had to work (boo) for a good chunk of it, good thing he was almost done by the time I got out of bed. Did some shopping (as usual) with Miss Mel, finding absolutely nothing that tripped my trigger (double boo). After that Taylor was done working, and he took me out for my birthday lunch to Sushi Masa. The single greatest restaurant I have ever dined. Seriously. Unfortunately, they were no longer seating people or taking names for lunch time diners (triple boo). Oh well, getting our order to go allowed me time to shop at my favorite used book store and Zambroz.

Then we had a small crowd over to my new apartment (after the in between 2 hours were spent thoroughly cleaning and finishing unpacking my apartment) for a Guitar Hero tourney.

I used my shiny new blender to whip up some strawberry margaritas. APPARENTLY, tequila can go bad, so they were rancid. Whoopsies. I'll remember that for the future (I think). I let Barry win the tourney so he wouldn't feel bad about losing to a girl, and we were off to the bars. Many many shots were taken at Shenanigans and I think I finally lost the headache that I had from that night.

One of the best birthdays I can remember (no pun intended), thanks to all those who celebrated with me, or wished me a happy birthday.

After 5 days off of work, I dreaded going back on Monday, but the 3 days flew by and last night was New Years Eve. We celebrated at Taylor's BEST BUD ZIMMY'S new house in formal attire. My personal favorite way to celebrate the new year. Well that and a bottle and a half of wine and a whole block of pepperjack cheese. Seriously. Now another day off today to watch football and play the Wii (ie: beat Taylor at the Wii) work tomorrow and the weekend again.

2008 was great, and I'm excited about what 2009 will bring!!