late november/early december

had a nice, relaxing, family-filled few days over thanksgiving up in ely. flew in on wednesday and celebrated my birthday that night with my mom and brother's family. mom made a good meal and we had some fancy desserts. yum. joe was there that night & left olive at my mom's house, she stayed there with my sister-in-law, andy, while the rest of us headed up to ely for a few days (andy had to work). joe went up to pequot lakes to visit his parents.


my cousin maggie's baby, cole and my nephew, reece

in ely we stayed at my aunt julie's house, which is an awesome place, and thankfully big enough to accommodate more than 30 people and several dogs for a few days. it was great to see everyone again, i don't see them nearly enough. there were lots of little ones this time. had some awesome wild rice soup the first night, my aunt was kind enough to make a vegetarian version for me. then friday was the big thanksgiving meal, which was really good. i ate way too much up there!


the turkey, which i did not eat.


one of the thanksgiving tables.

we went shopping in ely thursday night, i had wanted to get some steger mukluks but they were more expensive than i remember them! played a new game, blokus, which is actually really super fun. it's kinda like tetris. also played boxers or briefs, which is much like apples to apples. it was snowy up there, the first real snow i've seen this year, altho we've had some in chicago this week.


my cousin melissa's baby, max

we drove back to the cities saturday and joe came back down too. we went out with jim to dinner and met up with brian later for a few drinks. it was really great to see jim again--i think it had been a few years since the last time i'd seen him. we are planning to do new year's here in chicago this time with those guys and some other super cool people so i really hope that works out.

my birthday was tuesday, thanks to everyone who called, sent cards, texted, emailed, etc. it was nice to hear from all of you! i worked and then joe and i had a 3 hour, 5-course meal with wine pairings with each course at a fancy pants vegetarian restaurant called green zebra. it was really really good. and so fun to be able to pick from anything on the menu for once! this is what i ate:

Roasted Beets, wasabi gelee, cocoa nib foam, chippy
Sweet Onion and Garlic Soup, truffle cream
Potato Tots, sunny-side up egg, nicoise olives, heirloom tomatoes (the eggs were tiny sized...quail? perhaps hummingbird?)
Savory French Toast, saffron, carmelized fennel, sultana raisin vinaigrette

the dessert was a pumpkin tarte, I can't find it listed on the website tho. each of these were paired with a different glass of wine, so by the time i was finished i was feelin pretty good :)

that was way fun. joe ordered me a camera lens, the same one i posted a photo of below, it is due to arrive on monday. i am very excited about it & hope to go on some photo hunts once it arrives.

looking forward now to xmas break, need to start thinking about/making gifts. baked some white chocolate/cranberry/almond cookies last night. tonight, joe and i made a pear/carmelized onion/gorgonzola pizza that was pretty stellar.

oh, and my brother got me season 4 of project runway so i've pretty much been doing that all week. fun stuffs.