There and Back Again!

Sorry about that brief hiatus.

Matt and I spent a lovely long holiday weekend in Cleveland with my dear friends from college to celebrate our fourth annual belated Christmas that's come to be known as Martin Luther Kingsmas.  Since we spend the real holiday with our individual families, this long weekend has become a nice time to gather, hang out, enjoy the gorgeous weather (well, this year's!), cook some very good food, and do our annual gingerbread competition.

It's the times like this that make you realize that, yes, even though you've entered your third decade of life, that you can still be a silly teenager if you try.  Never had that been more clear than our deciding to go onto YouTube for viewings and sing-alongs of N'Sync and Backstreet Boys hits after critiquing the latest video from modern boy-band, One Direction.

You'd be amazed at how much we remembered from the older songs...

Among other highlights:

• We've resolved to write outrageously lie-filled Christmas card newsletters about how gloriously wonderful the previous year had been after reading one from a relative of Tanja's.
• The group played Trivial Pursuit after a new game: drawing cards from the "Cards Against Humanity" deck and making it into a round of charades.
  
• We shopped and then tried out a new restaurant on the East side, basically an Italian knock-off of Chipotle, called Piada.  Good food and $1.25 peach bellini.  Who am I to complain?
• Matt helped Nelson and Pat to play our spectacular Civil War board game, Battle Cry.  Nelson managed to lose Gettysburg for the Union. 
• Pat showed Tanja and I the movie "Empire Records," which neither of us had seen before.  We, in turn, showed him "Enchanted," which I think he liked a lot. 

The battle for gingerbread supremacy reached new heights and offensive lows this year.  Nelson and Pat continued their tradition of great work with an Angry Birds themed diorama.  Tanja and Mary Kate really did an amazing job with a Wizard of Oz themed gingerbread house atop a Rice Krispie Treat tornado.  *(Unfortunately, the house didn't feel like cooperating much, falling apart spectacularly...).  Matt and I reached a new low with a gingerbread concentration camp, complete with oven and pit of deceased Sour Patch Kids.  *(I have to give credit to Matt for the whole idea and for, uhh, executing an incredible train car made out of Matzoh crackers - just for that extra attention to offensive detail).

We devoured a few dozen of Mary Kate's pierogies, demolished Pat's turkey tacos, wiped the pan clean of Tanja's breakfast bake, cleaned up most of a cake made by Pat, and I, for once, really didn't do much outside of some prep work and pan-stirring.  It was glorious to help, but not be under the gun! :-p

All in all, we're still thirty.  We're drinking more water than pop or beer.  We know that the sweets have their limits.  But still, once in a while, it's fun to get together, act a little silly, and enjoy the life we used to know back in our college years at John Carroll.