Skiing...and some stuff in between

Life is always more hectic around the holidays, and this holiday season was no exception! Both Peter and I welcomed the end of the semester with open arms, and took advantage of every minute of the break from work.

This holiday season began with some exciting news: I will be getting a new sister! And, no, mom's not having a baby... rather, Ben is engaged to the magnificent Lindsey Kurland. She is smart, witty, beautiful, and adores my brother (hmmm, wait a minute... maybe she's not as smart as I thought?). We couldn't be happier, and look forward to the celebrations to come! Congrats, you two.

This year, the Westport Methots (along with a Miami Methot and a New Mexico Clement) joined us for a New Jersey Christmas, and we had a blast. Many gifts exchanged (some thoughtful and functional, some more humorous - see "back of the Armadillo Milk can," below), tons of food eaten, and too many drinks consumed - would we have it any other way?

Our lovely tree

Photo courtesy of Diane Methot - wish you could have been in it!

Back of the Armadillo Milk can... hmmm...

We actually celebrated a day early, because our flight to Whistler departed from Newark at 7:40am on Christmas day. After a 4 hour flight to Calgary, a 1 hour layover, a 45 minute hop over to Vancouver airport, and a 2 hour drive, we made it to our ski-in/ski-out condo at Woodrun Lodge in Whistler, British Columbia! And so the week of skiing, relaxing, and enjoying family began (and went by too quickly!). I would say it was incredible, but that doesn't quite do it justice. We got great dumps of snow, skied longer runs than I could have ever imagined (45 minutes for one run? Really?!), ate our way through Whistler village, celebrated Paul and Diane's 40th wedding anniversary at Bearfoot Bistro, and Peter and Luke lived a long-time dream by... going heliskiing! Yes, they flew in a helicopter to the mountain peaks and skied fresh tracks for a day.

Woodrun Lodge

Me, Peter, and Paul

Luke, Peter, and their heliskiing guide, Helene

Even the best ones fall... Luke doing a face plant!

Of course, because we can never tire of skiing or spending time with good friends, only 3 days after returning to NJ, Peter and I drove up to Lee, MA to spend a long weekend with my best friend, Jennifer Valentine, her husband, Jason, and two other friends (Sarah and Chris), who all flew up from Florida to try their hands at skiing for the first time. A family-friend of Jen's graciously allowed us to stay in her 5000 sqft, 5 bedroom home, and we took full advantage! The Friday of that week, we all drove the 40 minutes to Jiminy Peak, where Jen, Jason, Sarah, and Chris took a beginner ski lesson, and kicked butt! They then seamlessly applied their learned skills to skiing at Butternut the following day. We closed the trip that Sunday by visiting a charming Creperie, the Starving Artist Cafe (http://www.starvingartistcreperie.com/).

To round things out, the following weekend, Peter's best friend, Ryan Rivard, came with his girlfriend, Melissa, to stay with us for the long weekend. We went into the city on Saturday and toured all of our favorite spots: Spitzer's for lunch, Eataly and Birreria for drinks and cheeses, "Spin" so Peter could win a few games of ping pong, and finally Pony Bar for more drinks and to watch the Pats beat up on the Broncos (sorry, Tebow!). Then on Sunday we showed them Princeton, where we stocked up on truffle olive oil from Carter & Cavero (http://carterandcavero.com/), picked up some cheese from a cute little market, and tasted the new brews at Triumph Brewery. They headed home this past Monday, and we RELAXED.

This week we went back to work - necessary evil, I guess! But, with the arrival of the weekend is another opportunity to ski: tomorrow (Sunday) we are going with Matt and Lindsay to Mountain Creek, a NJ ski resort. It will be our first time visiting this mountain, but it's really convenient to have a place so close. We also finally got our first snow of the winter this morning (Brodie helped shovel), so the weather is certainly cooperating. Loving being up north!

Friends, Food, and Mud. Not all at the same time.

Last weekend, Peter, along with Adam Ghander and Pat Mulroney visited Luke in Miami for a "guys weekend." Troublesome, yes. But, as expected, they had a blast: golfing, a double-dose of tasty tacos from Taco Beach Shack (www.tacobeachshack.com), touring steak houses (including STK and Red), and last, but not least, enjoying Luke's surprise gift of rare Pappy Van Winkle bourbon.

Korean Short Rib and Kimchee Slaw Tacos - Yum!

Pappy - 20 year - a rare treat!

Now you might ask yourself, what was I doing while Peter was clowning around in Florida? I was at home in NJ weathering the first October snow storm in something like 50 years. 6 inches of snow, and a third of NJ out of power (not us, thankfully!). Seriously?! It was a cold Halloween, to say the least.

Just the beginning of more snow to come...

Our "chilly" pumpkins

It might be the beautiful weather--sunny and 50s everyday, with the exception of the Nor-easter--but I have gotten it into my head that I'd like to start running. So, I started this weekend off by running one mile, which is the first goal of my basic training program. I'd like to be prepared to run a 5k within 3 weeks, but we will see how committed I actually am to this idea! I will need you guys for support and accountability.

On Saturday, we watched the UF vs. Vandy football game, and were pleased to get a much needed Gator victory following 4 consecutive losses. Then Matt and Lindsey came over and we all sat by the fire, roasted marshmallows, enjoyed Peter's famed BBQ ribs, and sat through what ultimately became the most boring college football game between #1 (LSU) and #2 (Alabama) ranked teams in history. LSU--our worst enemy!--won the game 9-6, and not a single touchdown was scored in the entire 60 minutes.

Then, today (Sunday), we began by celebrating Brodie's 6th Birthday! He's getting to be such an old man. As a gift, we gave him peanut butter in his new elk antler bone - yum! He's very easily pleased.

Then we made delicious pancakes with roasted apples. I actually roasted the apples last night, prompted by a recipe posted on my favorite blog, "Not Without Salt." You can find the recipe here: Roasted apples. Very simple, and worthwhile.

Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed the fantastic weather by... riding ATVs. In the words of Barney Stinson from "How I Met Your Mother," it was LEGENDARY! And also quite muddy. Peter and I were the only two people there (I guess Saturdays tend to be busier than Sundays, and the end of their season is approaching) so we had the whole 16 acres to ourselves to weave through trees, jump hills, and get stuck in mud holes.


Now, our bodies are pretty sore (it's a lot more tiring than we expected), so we're ready to go to sleep and take advantage of the extra hour of sleep tonight. 'Til next time!

All things pumpkin...

This was a bye-week for the Florida Gators, so we had to find something else to entertain us.

Needless to say, we were successful. Matt and Lindsey King generously gave us tickets to see "Rent" in the Off-Broadway theater New World Stages in the city on Saturday - I had never seen it, and it had been years for Peter...we had a great time. Later that night, we visited a BBQ restaurant called Daisy May's, where we witnessed a group eating a WHOLE pig. It looked delicious, and we stared unapologetically.

Is he... smiling?

Sunday, we got into the Halloween spirit: we carved pumpkins (with illustrations of spiders, candles, and a scarecrow), baked sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds, drank pumpkin beer, and roasted s'mores in our fire pit. All before 5:00pm! Brodie joined in the fun by scavenging for pumpkin carving scraps - he really will eat anything.

We're back!

For the last year or so, our blog has sat sadly neglected, in part because Facebook offers a (not so) adequate substitute, and also because, well... no excuse is a good one. So, we've decided to revive the blog and update you on what we've been up to! And, with Autumn being our favorite time of year, we decided to return by sharing with you our outing yesterday (Saturday) with the NYC Methots (Chris, Karina, Luca, Kalev, & Zoe): apple-picking and hiking in Fall foliage.

To begin, we met a friend, Matt King, at his house in Weehawken, NJ. Matt and his wife, Lindsey, are fellow Gator alumni who we were fortunate enough to meet when we first moved to New Jersey. They have been our partners in crime, joining us to BBQ, to make pizza, to taste-test craft beer, to host the Saul's for fourth of July, and to ski quite a few times last season. Although Lindsey was out of town this particular weekend, Matt drove with us up to Conklin Orchards in Pomona, NY (http://www.theorchardsofconcklin.com/) to purchase Apple Cider Donuts, jump in the bounce-house (well, that was mostly Luca and Kalev - but Peter's jealousy read all over his face), enjoy a cup of hot cider, and pick fresh Golden Delicious apples.

Then, at around 3:00pm we all drove over to Bear Mountain, where we hiked 2.9 miles though a beautiful trail that led us up hills, through streams, into mud (Brodie enjoyed that part way too much), and up to a peak with a stunning view of the changing leaves. The 65 degree weather was a bit chilly in the wind, but we warmed up once we were sheltered by the trees. The boys (all of them, not just the ones under 10 years of age) ran around shooting plastic dart guns and doing pullups on the trees. So much fun!

Finally, the NYC Methots returned home, and Peter and I went back to Matt's house to make grilled cheese - with our fresh-picked apples,  prosciutto, and smoked Gouda. This tasty sandwich was the only thing that got us through the Gator v. Auburn game without breaking down (okay, I take that back, there may have been some alcohol-related consumption going on, as well). We lost, 6-17... there's nothing more to say about that.

On another note: now that we will be contributing to the blog again, we want this to not only be a way for the family to keep up with what we are doing, but also to share news and updates of your own! So, we encourage you to email me or Peter with anything you'd like posted, and we're happy to oblige. Love you all!