Pile of Marshmallows

Charlie was being especially cute this afternoon. He was sitting on top of the cat tower, being cute. Look at him sitting there with that little pile of marshmallows in front of him!

Xmas 2006

Christmas day started at Mom and Dad's, with some present opening and tons of breakfast. Our whole family got matching aprons for xmas presents!! That night, Mer had a Xmas party and made an awesome dinner. The best pork ever in the world. And champagne! Merry xmas!



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Xmas Eve

Ben's Dad Dennis has an annual Xmas Eve party at his cabin out in the woods, so we headed out to that tonight. Dennis's girlfriend Leah made a ton of DELICIOUS lasagna. Ben challenged Mr. Studlyhunk to a lasagna-eating contest. PLATE ONE:

They both polished off Plate One in no time. Here, Ben starts to work on Plate Two.

But wait!! Look at Mr. Studlyhunk's Plate Two! Look at that slice of lasagna! It's tiny! In no way is that near regularation lasagna size. DISQUALIFIED. Ben is the winner!

It was Landon's birthday, so present time!

Landon and Eve made an awesome piñata.

Yang was making the piñata talk and made it say very creepy things. "I'll be hanging down here thinking about you tonight while you are sleeping! I'll just be hanging here in the dark... THINKING about you!"

Eve is just about to turn Ben into a toad!

It wouldn't be a party without Apples to Apples.

And for the grand finale, Paul played us songs on the accordian!

Giant Car Bombs

Tonight a bunch of folks got together at the Red Brick. Like most festive occasions, we decided to do some Irish Car Bombs. This night was a little different though, because we decided to try GIANT car bombs. We used huge beer mugs instead of pint glasses, and highball glasses instead of shot glasses. They were ENORMOUS.



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Neck Beard

So, Joey has decided to grow a neck beard. Nobody really understands the neck beard! See for yourself:

Cheryl HATES the neck beard.

Tracy and Gina!

Profile of the neckbeard.

Cha Cha Slide

Today, Tom, Cheryl and I decided to do the Cha Cha Slide. We do it at least once a month here at work. But today was special because we got VIDEO!

POTROAST!

Gina and Scott had a dinner party tonight! They made POTROAST! Yum! And there was delicious salad and bread. Also, Jill brought UNICORN COOKIES!!! AND, Gina gave me a little golden heart-shaped box that contained FOUR unicorn pins from her childhood. Is she the best or WHAT?!!?!? After dinner, we all played foosball and darts!



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Breakfast Fun

This morning, Ben and I decided to cook some breakfast. Everyone knows that I play favorites with my cats, and this morning I was so sick of Emma that we decided to cook her!

At the last minute, we decided she would probably taste sort of gross so we decided to spare her. This time.

Then, we ate some clementines and Ben decided to try and see if he could fit a whole one in his mouth!

That is a big huge bite.

It's in there!

But can he chew it? He managed to.

Making blueberry pancakes.

I got to crack the eggs.

AND throw them across the kitchen into the garbage disposal. WHEE!

Charlie was very helpful.

Mostly he just stood around looking cute and being GREAT.

Emma sat on the outskirts of the kitchen, because she didn't want to DIE.

Stew Mac Holiday Party

It's time once again for the Stew Mac Holiday Party! I got to be the photographer again this year, which is always a great time. There is lots of fun and laughter and free drinks and the best rolls in town!!

After the party, a bunch of us went to Casa for a mini after-hours. After THAT, Ben and I went to Kayla's dance party! It was a great holiday event!



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Ridges Tour

Each month at NBIA, we have a staff meeting. Many years ago, it was tradition for NBIA staff to do a tour of the Ridges facilities in December, as that month's staff meeting. This tradition stopped before I started working here, but this year, we got to go! We went all over the place, and I saw more of the Ridges than I've ever seen. A lot of the super abandoned buildings. So creepy. So HUGE!



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Surprise Party

For Meredith's birthday this year, I decided to SURPRISE her with a party! She thought she and Pete were just coming over to have dinner with Mom, Dad, Ben and I. But I arranged for a bunch of her friends to come join us for a partay! We even had three out-of-towners PLUS Woody!!!!! She was very surprised and we all had a great time having thai pork stew, cake and beer!



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For Science

Tonight, Ben, Vana and I made burritos. After dinner, we decided we were in the mood for some SCIENCE! So we did some science experiments.

Experiment #1

For the first experiment, we decided to try and blow up a balloon using baking soda and vinegar.

The first thing a scientist will do is research their equations and hypothesis. Ben and Vana used The Internet to find the right ratios of the different components of the experiment.







The vinegar goes into the bottle.



The baking soda goes into the balloon.



You put the two together, and...



Success! Look at that balloon! Scientists!



Experiment #2

For the second experiment, we lit a piece of paper on fire, and stuffed it into a glass. Then we overturned the glass into a bowlful of water. The fire in the glass creates a CHEMICAL REACTION and the water all gets sucked right up into the glass! SCIENCE!





Experiment #3



This wasn't so much of an experiment as it was a RACE! I was going to be hosting a party the following night, and I needed to blow up 30 balloons. So we decided to have a RACE! We divided the balloons up into equal piles, and on our marks, got set, WENT!

Ben blew up one balloon for us to use as a size indicator. We had to try and make our balloons approximately that size.









Ben was the Winner!



Look at all those balloons!



Experiment #4

Since we had each just blown up a small pile of balloons as fast as we possibly could, we decided to drink a beer really fast to see if we felt more drunk than usual. The answer was YES!: