Happy New Year!

So 2013 is upon us, first to recap how we spent the end of 2012.

I was waiting to tell about Boxing Day because I left my camera behind at our friend's apartment, but turns out that I didn't take many exciting photos, despite a few inches of snow! Unfortunately we didn't get to play in the snow because it started raining as soon as it stopped snowing, but we did have a lovely day playing with Duplo and board games, and eating leftovers, and of course partaking in the Boxing Day box, a family tradition that I couldn't bring myself to miss!

The time between then and New Year's Eve was spent doing some much needed chillaxing and not a lot else as far as I can remember, although I do recall an overwhelming trip to a massive supermarket which featured a British section, and a separate outing to the (very busy) aquarium and stuffing my face at the Cheesecake Factory!

New Year's Eve involved A LOT of food again, with N and I putting together lots of party bites, most of which I forgot to photograph :( I did capture this one image, which is of the second batch of food to come out of the kitchen! After this there was also dessert. Ah, happy memories.

And now it is January 6th. I don't usually mind taking down the Christmas decorations, but I feel like Christmas came and went before I was ready for it this year. Although I'm keen to get back to the lab (at least I am now that I've recovered from New Year, the first three days back were not fun!), and feel like I've been sitting around at home long enough, our apartment looks pretty bare now that the decorations are down. And we have a very sad looking tree in the corner, that we can't bare to part with. It's been there for over a month and it's barely dropped any needles, and it wasn't exactly cheap, so it seems a shame to throw it out! I was thinking bunting, any other ideas?

:(

So what does 2013 hold for our household. Well for N, it seems a fair amount of travel is in order, at least for the first part of the year. And for me, well I tend to set goals for myself all year round, but I do think this is a good time of year for reassessing and re-focussing. This year, I thought I might share my latest goals, to see if it makes me more accountable:

• Join Girl Scouts
• Lose my American souvenir belly
• Plan our wedding!
• Stop scratching my face

What are your plans for 2013? Good luck and have a wonderful year!

Christmas in Baltimore 2012, Part 2: Christmas!

I had a lovely Christmas this year, in no small part to the wonderful Mr (Dr!) N. Thank yoooouuuuu :D

Let's rejoin the story on Christmas Eve. My family don't really have any Christmas Eve traditions, apart from hanging our stockings. It often involves a takeaway and a Christmas film. N and I decided we would have a Christmas Eve buffet, with cheese and crackers, veg and dips, and some baked goods. It was very tasty and I was pretty excited to have some British cheeses on the table, including some Wensleydale with cranberries picked up in Whole Foods, and Stilton with something which we found in our supermarket downstairs. Oh my gosh I nearly forgot to tell you about N's homemade stollen which was INCREDIBLE! He even made the almond paste in the middle from scratch. So good!

We enjoyed watching Bad Santa with our meal, and then before rolling into bed we hung our brand new America stockings above the "fireplace" (I never thought that stupid old television in the corner would come in useful, turns out I was totally wrong!)

Despite our trip across the pond, I am happy to report that Santa was able to find us! Look at all the cool stuff we got in our stockings. Totally spoilt before we even started on the pressies under the tree!

Our day very much revolved around food, so excuse me for reporting everything we ate! Breakfast was a simple affair including grapefruit, croissants and cinnamon buns.

Then we got started on the pressies! Look how much for just two people!

Thank you everyone!

For me the day was fairly relaxed, but N spent most of it in the kitchen whipping up a five course feast! I tried to refrain from snacking in the morning, and was rewarded in the early afternoon with an amuse bouche of crab and avocado bruschetta which was a great combination of tastes that I can actually see becoming a lunchtime favourite around here. This was followed in not too long by our official starter of smoked salmon and beetroot with vodka creme. Another great flavour combo which also looked awesome.

Soup course was a (thicker than expected) pea and mint soup. Also very tasty and fresh.

Then in mid-afternoon came the piece de resistance, N's pork wellington, with roasties, parsnips, caramelised carrots, sprouts with chestnuts, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy. I LOVED this meal! I have one clever N :D

It took a few hours before we were ready for my showstopper of the day, a pavlova wreath. Made the previous day and assembled with cream, chocolate sauce and raspberries before eating (/photographing). Yummy stuff if I do say so myself, and enjoyed over the best Christmas episode of Doctor Who in a long time. Can't wait for the new series!

And that was that, a fun, filling and fantastic Christmas Day. I would tell you about our Boxing Day, but I was stupid and left my camera behind at our friends' apartment. So you can hear about that another time. And now for a few days of chillaxing before bringing on 2013! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas in Baltimore 2012, Part 1: The Build-Up

In keeping with American tradition, just after Thanksgiving, one whole month ago, I started to well and truly get into the Christmas spirit. I was pretty excited this year (although saying that, I'm excited every year!) because not only was it our first Christmas in Baltimore, N and I were having our first Christmas together!

I knew I had to get organised this year so that I could send some stuff home before the posting deadline, so as soon as N was off in New York with his friend I headed out to a mall to start shopping. I got distracted pretty quickly though! Rather than buying presents to send home I bought several things to Christmas-ify our apartment, including advent calendars and an advent candle.

And some groceries so that I could make the Christmas cake and, for the very first time, my own mincemeat!

The following weekend N was back and went to acquire us a Christmas tree, which he sawed down with his very own hands! I think this might be the very best tree I have ever had. And of course called for the first batch of mince pies. Nom nom nom!

The next couple of weeks went by very quickly. We enjoyed adventures with N's friend from The Netherlands, including celebrating Sinterklaas which involved buying each other gifts and writing silly poems! We went to N's department's Christmas party at the aquarium which was pretty cool, but would have been even more awesome if we hadn't just become members the previous week (more about that another time, we're pretty excited!). On the other end of the Christmas party spectrum my department had a pot luck lunch in the seminar room, which was much more fun, and my second (and third I guess, I made double) batches of mince pies seemed to go down very well indeed.

The weekend before Christmas we had some friends over for dinner before we headed out to the Inner Harbour for the Power Plant light show. Of course I couldn't resist using the opportunity to do some more baking, so I tried out this recipe for stollen mince pies which turned out to be incredible!

The rest of the weekend passed quickly in a blur of grocery shopping, present wrapping, preparatory cooking and Skyping with some besties. I think the most fun hour I spent though was icing the Christmas cake!

It's been described as "busy", but I rather like it! And with that I'm off to cut into said cake because I think this post is getting rather long and I'm starting to think our Christmas Day deserves a post all of it's own!