MaccFest '08-'09

I know I'm skipping some holidays but I've decided to go in reverse order. So I'll run down our Christmas festivities at a later date.

Wednesday night we hosted the greatest New Year's Celebration there is in the upper Carrollton area. We had some of the same characters and a couple MaccFest virgins... welcome Hayley!!

Here's Blythe in her party dress before everyone arrived. She has legs... I promise they're under there.

We will begin with the menu, since eating is the most important activity of MaccFest. The appetizers were the traditional things wrapped in bacon, Mike made a caprese bake, which was fantastic, and guacamole from the Sears. Dinner was, in my opinion, our best ever. We had mushroom stuffed beef tenderloin, which as always took longer to cook than expected. Mike made some scalloped potatoes with bechemelle sauce. Mike was banned from saying the word bechemelle in my house because my limit is 27 and he hit at least 34. Kale and Erin supplied brandy glazed carrots and hazelnut green beans, both of which were delicious. Then after a short rest we had Kale's smore brule for dessert which was amazing!

We played Wii golf and Texas Hold "Em, laughed alot, finished off the guacamole shortly before midnight, and toasted in the New Year's with red wine, because we ran out of champagne at like 10, which was ridiculous. This marked the first year I actually was awake for midnight and I'm pretty proud of myself.

Here's Kale and Finn playing Wii golf.

A little Texas Hold 'Em action... notice Blythe has her own pile of chips to make it fair

This was just cute. Everyone was in the living room and these two were in the kitchen looking guilty.

Ringing in the New Year. Christine, Alli's sister, made it just in time.

I will give the quote of the night to Mike, and sadly I think I might have been the only one to hear it. This group tends to all just talk at once and on at least 3 subjects at any given time, so it gets pretty confusing. We were discussing Ben and Kale's height and the hardship that comes with it. This turned to an inquiry into their basketball skills, which I think it was said neither of them had any, but during this Mike threw out this little gem in defense of Ben's skills, "He once jumped over an Asian guy." No one even paused or acknowledged it, but it made me laugh, so hears to you Michael Gregory Feris!

The following day me and Hayley laid around until about 3 in the afternoon, watching a Biggest Loser marathon on Bravo. The boys went to play golf and when they returned I made them put the kitchen cabinets back up. Then we ate the leftovers, which I think were better the second time, and played another round of Texas Hold 'Em.

Here are the boys putting up the cabinets. I just enjoyed how much Mike was helping in this picture.

I think this might have been my favorite MaccFest yet, and I'm extremely excited for next year as I think we decided to make it a formal event, so we can dress up! Thank you everyone for coming and cooking. We love you guys!!