Christmas Paprikash and the big sour lemon

We had a lovely Christmas day, and day after.  

We made our famous Hungarian Chicken Paprikash and cut the big "1 year old" lemon open finally.  

I heard from Dana about a week ago.  Still hoping she sends me some pictures from Christmas.  🤷

Took a walk around the neighborhood.

We watched Die Hard.  I didn't like it.

Cutting the umbilical cord.

Almost as big as my face. 😁

Chocolate Chip Cookies

"Here, smell"

Sour lemon.

Painfully tart, not sweet like we expected from a Meyer Lemon.

This was taken at their church.

Happy Chef.

Secret Ingredient

So delicious!

Complete with the dumplings

So many seeds!

Yummy sweetness!

 

That's all for now.  There will be surprises in the New Year.  

The Sound of Music 🎶

Darryl and I decided to actually "go out" somewhere! Imagine that.  We went to a play of The Sound of Music.  The people were super talented, but they added some weird songs that weren't in the original.  Not sure why they did that...  All the same, I'm glad we went.

We sat right here by the orchestra.  It was pretty nice!

The theater before it got filled up.

Stupid mask mandate! 😷

 The mask gestapo came down to our seats and had stern words for Darryl for taking his mask down and eating some cashews.  Someone in the theater reported him.  I'm glad we didn't get removed.  Our world has gone completely mad.

Our Thanksgiving Birthdays

Our family celebrated Thanksgiving and Hilary's and my birthdays early because Kyle and Hilary are away this week.  (Look, I already put my tree up!  haha that's a first.)

Darryl snapped this one late in the evening.

This is a centerpiece that I made from stuff in my yard.

I fell down on the job of taking pictures on our celebration day and didn't get any of Ryan and Shauna, so I took this one a couple of days later.

A toast before dinner

You want some?

My charcuterie board.

Trying something new: Chocolate red wine and EggNog white wine.

The 2 birthday girls cooking together.

I'm so calm...lol 

I decided to try a fully cooked (smoked) turkey this year so I wouldn't have to worry about it being "done".  Well, never again.  It tasted awful.  Don't tell anyone, but I threw out a lot of the leftovers.  Next year I will completely rethink my menu.

Darryl doing the usual (with Wilson)...zzz...while the kids and I played games and laughed loudly.

Hilary made this amazing peanut butter birthday cake with a surprise inside!  Yummy!!  I already gained too much weight. 

 Now we need to get ready for our annual family Christmas sleepover.  

Our visit to Almost Heaven...

Darryl and I flew to Charleston West Virginia to visit with Mom last week.  This first picture is a little gift I got for her, which she and I thought was very funny, but the humor is a bit lost on everyone else.  haha...

We took Mom on a nice long car ride to Seneca Rocks.  Here are some pictures I took along the way on that long winding road through the mountains.

This is Seneca Rocks, which we did not climb, we just admired from a distance.

These next few pictures are from the BBQ restaurant we stopped at on the way back.  It was called Smoke on the Water.

I deliberately took this one from a longer distance away because Mom is still recovering from Bell's Palsy.

flowers in Mom's garden

Darryl and I drove out to Rock Cave to see Mom and Dad's old farm, which in its day was just stunning, but now it is vacant and run down.  Very sad.

We stopped at the Elk farm.

Cool bird houses at Mom's house.

On the way back to the airport we drove around Charleston, and there wasn't much to see.  A lot of it was pretty slummy.  But we did get to see the Capitol building which was cool looking.

I'm not sure when I'll ever want to fly again.  The world is a very bad place right now, between the unconstitutional mask mandate and now all the poison jab requirements.  We have a cruise booked for next year.  Pretty much doubt that will happen.  I am not letting anyone jab me. Nope.  And I don't want to be wearing a mask on vacation...EVER.  

With how the world is now, I'm half expecting Jesus to come any day now.  

Where are You, Jesus?  I would think You'd be here real soon.