Christmas in Merrillville
For a late Christmas get-together, Liz and I headed over to Merrillville, for a lovely evening/dinner at Katie and Tim’s house.
For a late Christmas get-together, Liz and I headed over to Merrillville, for a lovely evening/dinner at Katie and Tim’s house.
to Merrilville… to hang out with Julie and Bob, and Katie and Tim’s family. We had a big dinner planned, with folks arriving in the afternoon for drinks and gift exchanges.
Tim’s father, Ray, was the officiant who did the marriage all those years ago. He was also the one who officiated last year (when they officially tied the knot). And he was the officiant today, when Tim and Katie were married in front of all their family and friends.
Ray is in the unique position to have married Katie and Tim not once, not twice, but thrice. Which seems like a very special and lucky thing, if you ask me.
Today and tomorrow are a bit weird, in that I’m staying out in Valparaiso, IN but commuting in to Chicago. I rode in with Bob early in the AM (he came in to work on our place while I was at work), but took the South Shore line back out to Valpo at the end of the day.
Post-dinner, we played a few rounds of Secret Hitler, which Katie had brought over. Last year, we played Ticket to Ride, and this year we brought over Azul.
We were in the midst of preparing veggies and things when everyone arrived. So much of the time, we all just hung out in the kitchen – cooking, drinking wine, and visiting a bit.
Liz and I left the city on Wednesday, and headed out to Valparaiso to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Julie and Bob. Today, we mostly just bummed around the house before the festivities (and Katie/Tim’s family came over).
This event has happened a few times in the past (see the links below), but this would be the first time the pie making has happened in Julie and Bob’s new house (and on their new countertop to boot).
Each seat had its own name card. This year, Savannah realized they didn’t have cards for me and Liz… so she made ours.
For me, I have very fond memories of the house – despite being a late arrival. Even now, looking at these columns and into the living room… it’s hard not to imagine a christmas tree.
The day after Christmas, Katie and Dan’s family headed over to Frankfort to hang out (and to have a post-Christmas dinner). On arriving, we all ended up congregating and hanging out in the kitchen for a long while.
The apple pie was delicious, as always. Final count: 22 (which interestingly enough was the same count from 2014).
After flying back in to Chicago from Atlanta, Liz and I decided we wanted to spend the night in Frankfort. Doing so allowed us to spend more time with Julie and Bob, and also had us at the house when Katie came over with the kids.
On my way to helping Bob with the furnace, I stopped by Frankfort to drop Liz off at her parents’ house. They have an annual tradition of making apple pies, and Liz was going to be joining her mom, Katie, and Savannah and prepping up a ton of pies.
The thing with dry ice is that, through a process known as sublimation, it shifts from a solid to a gas without an intermediate liquid stage.
If you’ve seen it done in science classes, you know the cool “fog effect” that happens when you mix dry ice and water. The present we got Cameron was basically this experiment, but with a slight twist. Luckily for us, Cameron had never experienced dry ice before… so it got to be a cool thing on multiple counts for him.