Merry Christmas to You - Brady

Kevin and I are off to Costa Rica tomorrow (a major bucket list item for me), so I wanted to quickly post about Christmas. We had a bit of a crazy schedule...we started in La Porte for a pre-Christmas Eve Christmas Eve with my cousins who celebrate the actual day in Vermont, stayed the night, then drove to Fort Wayne for a party with friends, stayed the night, then drove back to La Porte for Swedish Christmas Eve, stayed the night and opened gifts with my family, went back to Fort Wayne for the rest of Christmas Day, then left early this morning to get back to Chicago to work through a major to-do list before our trip.

In total, we'll go eight nights without sleeping in the same bed twice in a row, and then we'll be in Costa Rica and still moving hotels quite a bit. Yeesh. My nomad self, trained by years of sleeping in the basement, in my sisters' rooms, on the couch, at my grandparents', anywhere but my own bed is used to this, but I think it's harder for Kevin.

Anyway, here are photos from the past four days. The holidays were wonderful, as usual. Also as usual, I'm not ready for them to be over.

Grandma and Grandpa's tree.

The hustle and bustle at Swedish Christmas Eve.

On the night we celebrated with my cousins headed to Vermont we spent some time cutting out paper snowflakes for the school shooting victims in Connecticut. Grandma brought cookies over and Sarge the bulldog made herself at home, and it was quite the craft party.

Swedish Christmas Eve dinner.

I think this is lutefisk, a Swedish dish my grandparents serve every year. Being vegetarian, I haven't tried this since I was a kid. (Darn.) I used to think those peppercorns were floating fish eyeballs. 

Grandpa made me one of his Manhattans! Loved it.

I love my grandparents' house, especially at Christmas.

Some of my cousins.

My sisters, Kevin, Roger, and me.

My Christmas gift to my grandpa.

When I was a kid, I knew it was finally Christmas when I saw these multicolored lights at my grandparents' house.

Coffee and presents! (And a fake fire on the TV.) Christmas morning with my immediate family.

The Buck.

Christmas morning walk.

On to the Rasps! 

Cutie pie and a Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas!

The Best Month of My Life - Brady

During all of 2012 I've been making monthly resolutions...do yoga every day, take more risks, etc. My resolution for December was to make it the best month of my life, ever.

I think I may have succeeded. Take the past week as an example.

Last Saturday night, Kevin and I went to a Christmas concert put on by my favorite musician - Sufjan Stevens. This was no ordinary night of carols, though. This guy is usually a (relatively) normal singer/songwriter, except every couple of years he puts out a huge (by huge, I mean lots and lots of songs) Christmas album. I think in our music collection we have over a hundred holiday songs just by him, many of them original. The concert was ridiculous, there were probably 75 inflatable Santas he and his band threw into the audience, a headdress made of balloons, streamers, fake snow, and a gigantic "wheel of Christmas." We didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple to give you an idea of how wild our night was.

On Sunday, Kevin and I had a much calmer night of Christmas music. We went to a lessons and carols service at a big church downtown, then spiked our Starbucks hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps and went to the Zoo Lights event at Lincoln Park Zoo.

Monday we took a breather and just enjoyed time at our condo. I love our place at Christmas, especially having a real tree and a fireplace...I'm constantly torn between spending time at home relaxing and going out on December adventures.

Tuesday we went to Christkindlmarket (a German Christmas market) in Daley Plaza. Then my superstar husband surprised me with dinner out and a night in a downtown Chicago hotel (Hotel Indigo, which I'd highly recommend!). As if our week wasn't already packed with fun. We drank hot wine, ate giant pretzels, and bought our yearly family Christmas tree ornament - a sparkly blue pinecone - which I think is very pretty. 

Wednesday, Kelly and I went to one of the best plays I've ever seen. It's called Metamorphoses, and it was performed at the Lookinglass Theater in the old water tower. The play portrays a series of Greek myths, but the entire stage is a pool of water. It's hard to explain, but it was absolutely beautiful. When I got home, I insisted Kevin look into finding a ticket because I thought it would be a shame if he missed it. He was able to find them for half price online, so he got one for me as well and the two of us went on Friday. (We were in the "splash zone" that night, which was quite an experience.) I don't have any pictures, but I've included too many in this post as it is, so no worries I guess.

Thursday was ANOTHER concert (I swear, I went to more concerts in one week than I did the rest of the year). Andrew Bird plays the violin, whistles, and sings, and loops it all together into really beautiful songs. He gave a concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church. As we waited outside, the rain Chicago had gotten all day long turned to snow. It was a pretty perfect evening.

That brings us to Friday when, as I mentioned, Kevin and I went to see Metamorphoses again. We ended the night with cocktails, Christmas music, packing at home, and an early bedtime. We had to wake up Saturday morning to run seven miles (Kelly and I signed up to run a half marathon in February...not sure what we were thinking) and then get on the road to Indiana to celebrate my mom's birthday and then the holidays. I'll write all about that later, this post is already too long!

Lots of love to you. I hope your December has been as perfect as mine.

Two Winter Adventures - Brady

It's been a good couple of weekends in the Jones-Rasp household - this may end up being my favorite December ever! There are two particular little winter adventures we've had recently I wanted to post about.

First, last weekend, Kevin and I drove down to DePauw's campus - where we met and attended college - to go to a big holiday concert, see the luminaries students put up this time of year, and reconnect with our favorite professor over pancakes at her apartment.

DePauw's new nature preserve - we went for a hike and a run out there during our 36 hours in Greencastle.

Nature preserve.

Nature preserve.

Nature preserve.

Old DePauw.

East College - where I had a bunch of Spanish classes.

Luminaries outside of the Holiday Gala.

Then just yesterday we helped Kelly celebrate her 28th birthday! (Happy birthday Kelly! Twenty-eight is a great year.)

My mom came up Friday night, and my sisters, Roger, Kevin, and I met her at Kirkwood, an Indiana bar in our neighborhood, for some good beer, good food, and an IU soccer game. After that Kelly, Amy, Mom, and I slept over at Kelly's place.

On Saturday Kevin and I picked up my grandma and Aunt Judi (as well as a gorgeous box of donuts) downtown and then headed out for a day of shopping in Andersonville, an old Swedish neighborhood in the city. I hope we didn't scare our family members off...we happened to be on a bus that drove right through an event called "The Twelve Bars of Christmas." Right around Wrigley Field the streets were overrun with people (some of them may have been a little bit tipsy) dressed like elves and angels, reindeer and Ralphy. Our bus driver honked, they cheered and banged on the windows. It was really quite an adventure.

Anyway, we finally made it, and I think we all found some good gifts. Grandma was disappointed, though, that she couldn't find a decent loaf of limpa anywhere.  I ask you - what good is a Swedish neighborhood if you can't buy limpa there? Huh?

The donuts.

The damage.

Finally, last night after our family headed home Kelly organized a dance party at Baby Atlas, a really fun bar near our apartments. I stayed up way too late and ate way too many veggie dogs and french fries on the way home, but it was 100% worth it. A great, great Saturday night. One of the best I've had in awhile.

Like I said - it's been a good holiday season so far. After all that excitement, Kevin and I are spending a quiet Sunday night getting cleaned up, caught up, and our Christmas presents wrapped. Happy December to you! Make the most of it - it's going fast.