a little update

I don't do this often, but I will do it as an Xmas present for everyone! =)

This month has been so super busy--I finished my first semester of grad school, most likely with a 4.0 but I am still waiting on both my term project grades. I took one IME grad class and one MGMT grad class and both were relatively simple. Of course, the management class required a boat load of annoying group work and we had teams of 10 people dispersed all over the US--all I can say was that it was ANNOYING. Everyone had different schedules, some people wanted to con-call at midnight when I had to get up 4 hours later--I don't think so!!

So anywho... other exciting things this month:
We went snowboarding for the first time last Friday. There was about 1.5 feet of powder in the Berkshires and it was beautiful. However, on a snowboard its really hard to board unless the trails are really groomedd so I did alot of falling.

We are hosting our first party in our new house. We are keeping it pretty small-- a few friends from work, some family, etc. We are making menus, having a wine tasting, etc. I am hoping for something more classy than our normal cheap beer, get hammered parties, but we shall see. People think if you say party, you mean get completely trashed. I'll have reports on how it goes. I put together a menu that I think covers alot of tastes and also challenges people to try somethinig different:

International cheese platter
Shrimp cocktail
Clams casino
Chicken Satay
Marinated Pork Tenderloin
Moms Meatballs
Spinach/Parmasen Balls
Tuscan White Bean Dip
Devilled Eggs
Chocolates
Chocolate covered pretzels
Caramel apple slices

We are making everything from scratch, so last night, we made the chocolate and the pretzels... yum! They are so fancy... we use pretzel rods, coated them in chocolate and then rolled them in candy canes, nuts, M&Ms, sprinkles, etc so they are sooo fun!

Other than that, xmas shopping, work, going to the gym, the usual...

I still can't think of what to give Austin for xmas. We put a $50 limit on it and decided to spend most of our money on doing the Christmas Angel program to provide clothes, boots, and toys for a little boy--so fun to shop for everything for a 2 year old!!