Leapin' Leprechauns!

Our friends S and A have a St. Patrick's Day party every year. They brew green beer and make homemade corned beef. It's a fun time. Each year I bring a green dessert. Take a look at this year's experiment.

Leprechaun cake balls! The insides were green velvet cake. Yum!

I love their hats! Fudge circle cookies + Reese's cups.

Birthday Box

My birthday was a few weeks ago. I'd like to tell you about one of the gifts I received. Among other things he gave me, this one was the winner from A.

But first, a confession.

I'm a wanna-be survivalist. Also called "preppers" (for those of you who watch the National Geographic channel). Survivalists are people who prepare themselves for a disaster. Nuclear winter, the next Depression, natural disasters, you name it. I heard about this about a year ago. I'm a planner. Always have been. What better to plan for than an emergency? I'm also a big "what-iffer". "What would we do if....?" You can fill in the blank.

So I started to talk to A about emergency plans for an event which would fall into the category dubbed by survivalists as SHTF (Shit Hits The Fan). He mostly thought I was crazy (we can debate that later), but appeased me by talking through a basic emergency plan.

Taking all this into account, let me show you my present.

Just an unassuming box, right? To be honest, I would have been happy with just the box. I love organizing, too.

When I opened it, I saw this.

Yes, those are graphics of zombies.

It's a little difficult to see, but A drew out our emergency plan. It's a map showing Lake Michigan (blue waves), our condo, the hospital he works at, and then a random farm in Indiana. Plus zombies chasing after me and Orion. So the plan he worked out is:

1. I grab Orion (and apparently appropriate a gun somewhere).
2. We meet A at the hospital.
3. All of us go hide out on a farm in Indiana.

Not too shabby.

The rest of the contents of the box:

And here are some labels.

All helpful things to have during a zombie apocalypse. The movie is obviously for inspiration ahead of the SHTF moment.

Do I really believe our big emergency will be zombies? Nah. But you never know if a big disaster is headed our way. Now I feel more prepared!

It's a Doctor's Life.... #1

You know your husband is a surgeon when....

1. You pick up a pencil from the holder and find this:

Just some evidence of knot-tying practice.

Gotta make sure those stitches don't slip!

Getting Lost in Atlantis

I'll start this off with an admission: I'm a lucky girl. Now that's out of the way, feel free to be jealous. Just kidding - mostly. :)

My new company goes on a holiday trip every year at the end of January. We celebrate the successes of the previous year and just generally have a great time together. There is no work - just play. The company pays for airfare for each employee and a guest as well as a hotel room for two nights. Pretty sweet deal. And this year's trip was to... (drum roll please)... 

Atlantis! That paradise-like resort in the Bahamas.

From the moment I found out about the trip, A knew he couldn't go. So I asked my sisters if they wanted to go and we could all three split the third person's airfare. Unfortunately, sister S works for the slave-driver that is Disney and wasn't allowed to take vacation. Thankfully sister A was able to come with me!

We were on different flights getting in that Friday afternoon. We grouped up with one of my fellow Chicago office employees and grabbed a taxi to the resort. On the way there we stopped at a supermarket and bought some food for breakfast and snacks. (MUCH cheaper than the food at Atlantis!)

After getting our room, we went straight out to the beach. Such beautiful water!

Friday was unfortunately an overcast day and even in the Bahamas, it's cool in January. (The water was not heated, either!) We sat by the beach for a while but soon had to get ready for the first of two planned events - a happy hour. They held it on an outdoor patio.

After the happy hour, we played some blackjack and hung out with people in the casino. We were glad we didn't sleep in too much - we had plans to do as much as we could on Saturday!

This was the view from our room:

I forgot to mention the other errand we ran on Friday... we walked across the street to a liquor store and bought a bottle of rum. What is the Caribbean without rum? Plus it was the cost of ONE drink at Atlantis. Well worth it.

The morning was sunnier than the day before, so we hit the beach first. Sand, beautiful water and rum and Cokes!

Then we made our way to the pools. Atlantis has a ton of pools, along with slides and a not-so-lazy river. Think lazy river (drifting along in tubes) plus rapids. We rode along the lazy river and tried some slides. But first we warmed up in a hot tub!

That night we had a company dinner which included a D.J. Much dancing was done. More time was spent in the casino. Sadly, blackjack was not good to me this time.

On Sunday we had a few hours before we needed to head to the airport. It was the most sunny day we had all weekend. First we tried the part of the rapid river we had missed the day before and also a tube slide - super fun! Then we took a break to splurge on frozen drinks and conch fritters for lunch. Yum!

The beach was gorgeous in the full sun.

We had a really fun time. I can't wait to hear next year's destination!

Oppa Korean Style

Two of our friends have spoken to us of a mysterious Korean barbecue experience for a while now. We finally were able to merge schedules and go out to dinner. (Tough to do when they are just as busy as we are!) They took us north to Hae Woon Dae in the north Chicago neighborhoods. Since they've been before, they knew to ask for a private side room. We all took our shoes off and sat on the floor - traditional style.

Korean barbecue is similar to fondue in that you cook your own food. In our case, it was mostly the ladies doing the cooking. 

They bring you a grill on top of a fire. Then they bring the food. We only ordered three things to share and we had TONS of raw meat. We tried the beef, chicken, and pork. What they were called, I do not recall (and could not pronounce correctly). So glad we were with friends who knew what to do!

Along with your meat comes tons of side dishes. All small amounts of different things. What were they? We played a guessing game. There were veggies, tofu, all kinds of things. We also tried a Korean alcohol called Soju. It's kind-of like sake and also like vodka. If you know us, that means I liked it and A wasn't too impressed. 

It was a really fun and tasty experience!