This past Thursday, I got back from a work trip to Los Angeles.  Usually, I'm only there for three or four days, but this trip was a bit longer.  I decided to go a bit earlier because my sister, Amy, and her family were there for a Sumo competition at The Los Angeles Fitness Expo.  Yep, you heard right.

My brother-in-law's brother, Sumo Dan, is a world-ranked Sumo wrestler and lives in LA.  He was competing in an open tournament at the LA Convention Center and invited my brother-in-law, Brian, to compete as well.  So, I got to see both Brian and Dan compete, which was a lot of fun!

The next day, I went with Amy, Brian and my niece, Annalee, to Griffith Park where we played at the park, went on the Merry-Go-Round, and took a little train ride.  Annalee seemed to enjoy it and I had fun hanging out with them.

Mary's dad also happened to be in the area to work at a show in Anaheim.  On Tuesday night, I drove down to meet him and we went to McCormick & Schmick's.  The food there is always great.  It was really great to see both him and my sister's family while away from home.  It made all the asset management, legal and rights & permissions meetings a little more bearable.  Although, the 70 degree weather helped, too!

Although this was a couple weeks ago, it still deserves mention.  For Mary's 28th birthday, we went out to dinner with several of our friends.  There were 12 of us in total, and we went to Scoozi! after having a great meal there with Mary's Dad a few weeks earlier.  It was also fun because some people stopped by our place beforehand for a drink, and the rest stopped by our place afterwards.  All in all, a great evening with good food and good friends!

On a side note, Mary and I both had the exact same food and wine as our previous trip to Scoozi, tagliatelle bolognese and the gnocchi trio.  Maybe we'll try something different next time!

I have been fortunate to have almost the entire last two weeks (except for one day) off from work.  I took my birthday off right before Christmas, but my job gives all employees off from Christmas Eve through New Year's and because of how the days landed this year, it was extended through this weekend.  So, today was my last day off.  Anytime throughout my life when I would have vacations, time off of school, or even just a long weekend, I would come down with what my mom called "Sunday Night Syndrome" in that I would just start to feel punky about the fact that starting the following day, I would have to go back to normal life, be it school or work. 

I got to thinking today though about what has filled my time the past two weeks.  Clearly, Christmas celebrations with families take up a good amount of time, along with the final preparations for Christmas, such as wrapping all the gifts just right,  but I would not have any of those events any other way.  Then there was a case of food poisoning or something that really made me somewhat useless for a few days (yuck!).  Jack and I were also able to do some furniture shopping.  All of our shopping around paid off in the last few days in that we finally found some things we liked and made some purchases (hooray!).  I am not so great yet at adding pictures to our blog, so I might have to leave those to Jack in regards to the items we bought and such.  Let me just say though that we are quite pleased, and I would guess that Jack is somewhat relieved, that we won't have to keep shopping for dining room chairs.  Our New Year's Eve celebration with friends was of course a lot of fun and we only wish we could have spent it with all of our friends.  Jack and I also had a wonderful home-cooked meal on New Year's Day involving "super colossal" crab legs - yum!  My parents have long had a tradition of having their own new year's eve celebration at home involving lobster tails and crab legs, so now that I have a husband and a home, I felt compelled to institute a similar tradition for us. 

There are always things I don't get to on breaks like this.  I start it with the best of intentions and a list a mile long, but the time available and my expectations never match.  There were boxes I didn't get unpacked like I thought, though I did get to some, so I have to be at least glad for the progress.  There were things that we did get to do that weren't in my original plan for these weeks that I am glad we were able to fit in.  Tonight happened to be one of those items in that we got to take Jack's parents out to dinner to Cooper's Hawk in Burr Ridge.  It was a nice leisurely meal with wine, good food, and even better company.  There was never a quiet moment and I even learned some things throughout the night.  I am sure I will have a lot of nights in the future with them where I will learn something though.  I will say that, in and of itself, it was a great night, but it was even better for me because tonight's dinner provided just the right amount of distraction to my "Sunday Night Syndrome".  I wasn't left to stew at home on the thought that my vacation was ending, but rather, I was able to end my vacation on a high note.

Now that I have spilled my guts, what did everyone else do on their Christmas/New Year's time off?  (Leave your answers in the comments section please)

Mary and I were in Steve and Kati's neighborhood tonight, so we decided to see if they wanted to grab dinner.  We ended up going to Chicago Brauhaus in Lincoln Square.  Neither Mary nor Kati had been there before, and I don't think they quite expected the atmosphere.  There was a live 2-man band playing what I'm sure was supposed to be German music, it was somewhat dimly lit, and people were drinking dark beers out of large glass boots.

Ahh, it was great. 

Mary had the sauerbraten with spatzle and I had the schweine schnitzel with mashed potatoes.  It was pretty darned good.  We each also had a healthy glass of Spaten Lager...Steve had two!

We had another great Guys Nite last Saturday.  We met at Ken's place in DG then headed out to dinner at Brick House on Butterfield Rd for dinner.  The steak was pretty good, the service was ok.  Nothing really fantastic, though.  They did have beer table tappers, which is always a plus in my book.

After Steve met up with us, we for some reason decided to go to Rizzo's in Naperville.  I'm not sure why we end up going there sometimes, but there's nothing like vibrating speakers and a few drinks with the boys for a guaranteed good time.

Steve, Chris, Rocco, Ken, Bob & Jack (Rocco didn't go to the bar with us)