Category: Celebrations

I have finally posted all of the holiday pictures.

You can find them at our photo site here.

All my siblings have gone home and the decoration are starting to come down. And, Karen and I caught our colds for the season.

We spent our New Year's Eve watching movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Karen and I enjoyed that movie.

We are heading back to work tomorrow. Bummer!

I hope that you and your family have had a wonderful year.

I wish you and your family good health in the coming year.

Only two days from the start of Christmas break. The company that I work for shuts down from this Friday, December 23rd through Monday, January 2nd.

And, I can't wait. It is great especially after Christmas day, because you are not rushing to get some last minute gift.

You get to have time with and away from family.

Well, Karen click off another year. She looks great. Karen’s brother Paul called this morning to tease her. He acted like he tought she turned 51 today instead of 41.

We will be having the family over today to celebrate. My sister is in town with her family for the Holidays so she should be joining us, too.

Karen wants to have hot wings and cold beer for her birthday dinner. It is simple, but great!

I have sent flowers to her office to brighten her day. I have heard that her office mates all signed a card and Gabby gave her gift at work, too.

I hope she enjoys her gift from me. I have a backup gift arriving today in the mail, but I don’t want to rely on the backup gift.

The whole Ronning family will be desending on our house this weekend for the big Pre-Christmas dinner.

We look forward to it every year.

Normally, we pickup a Turducken from Tim's Cajun Kitchen. But, something went wrong with our planning and Tim's doesn't have any more Turduckens so Karen and I will be making it from scratch which should be a blast. The real question is do we have time. The our butcher at Publix is good to save us some time by handling the de-boning.

The time crunch comes from the fact that my mother's birthday is the day before.

We headed over to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Karen helped my mother make the gravey and dressing while I helped my dad with his computer.

Karen and my mother prepared a great dinner. Karen received a lot of praise for her contribution.

I, on the other hand, was just glad that I could reverse the damage that I had done to my dad's computer. I had been starting to setup his computer so that he could remotely access it. Let's just say it didn't goes as planned.

Karen and I had a blast smoking our first turkey and hanging our new Christmas lights.

Smoking the turkey is almost an all day job. We keep feeding new coals and wood chips throughout the day.

Hanging the lights went well until the rain started in on me. Their is nothing like feeling cold rain coming down on you while you are standing on a steap roof. I stopped for the day.

Now that the lights are up, they look great.

Karen and I have been laboring around the house like so many of our neighbors this weekend. There is nothing like a three day weekend to bring out the labor (or the to do list.)

Like any great three day weekend, you have to have some great eats! Karen and I picked up three slabs of baby back ribs. And, I am cooking them using one of Alton Brown's recipes for ribs from his “I'm Just Here for the Food” book. The nice thing about this approach is that you aren't have to work the ribs. Initially, the ribs are cooked for a hour at 350°F and then reduced to 250°F for another two hours.

Well, my birthday has been a blast. Karen and I put together a great dinner include filet mignon, baked potatoes, and green beans season with bacon. The filet just melted in your mouth.