"Dollar-seventy-five" theater doesn't feel the same. . .

On Friday night Rich and I had a date night and went to the "dollar" theater to see Forever Strong, which was good. And also cheesy. But Dan from Gossip Girl was in it, so that was fun.

The last time I was in these theaters was in high school when we went to see The Emperor's New Groove. And on Friday I realized that many of the "movie milestones" in my life took place at Sandy Movies 9 before it became the discount theater.

I saw The Little Mermaid there when I was six years old. I went with my best friend Rachel. And we giggled and looked at each other in that secret, knowing way when Prince Eric guesses "Rachel" as Ariel's name. To us this was MAJOR. That little giggle held so much meaning.

A year later, when I was seven and Brad was ten, we went to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We'd spent hours jumping on the tramp yelling things such as "cowabunga" in preparation for this movie. But I'm not sure anything could have prepared us for the total awesomeness that awaited us in that dark theater.

Later in my seven-year-old summer, we went to see Jetsons: The Movie. We arrived to the movie early so we could get special movie posters. I remember the poster. It hung on my wall for years. I remember nothing from the movie.

So the moral of the post is, date night was actually a really great walk down memory lane. I'm unsure how much Rich loved hearing my stories. As they are so relevant to the here and now. But I'm certain that we'll go back to the "dollar" theater for another date night. And that makes me smile.

Teensy, Delish Scone

As promised.

Welcome 2009!

Sigh. I can't believe it's 2009. Honestly, this is freaking me out. There were so many thing I planned on having accomplished before this time in my life. Not that there were any goals predicated on completion by 2009, rather that I just imagined things differently. I mean, this is the year I'll have to start counting myself as an adult---26 tragically rounds up to 30. This is not making me happy. But since dwelling on this unfortunate aging issue will not help anything, we'll move right along.

Rich and I rang in the new year with my family. The kids played Wii, I'm pretty sure, for 5 hours straight. Braeden has the "Wii blister" to prove it. The adults played games and watched comedy skits on the Internet and ate lot of food. It sounds boring, but it wasn't. I have a great family, and I know I'm lucky to say that I'm still so close to all my siblings. We watched the ball drop and rang the required bells and tooted the obligatory horns. It was all great fun. Afterward Brad threw Jo into the snow. But she got the best of him. Cuz' girls rule.

*We should note that I wrote this post a long time ago and never uploaded the pictures, so thus, the tenses may be a little off. But I decided not to change it.

Christmas Christmas!!

I'm late. There will be many posts in a row as I attempt to catch up. But Christmas deserves its own post. Because, well, it's Christmas!

My family never really gets together on Christmas Eve because we all have our own big, fancy family dinners, so though it was just the two of us, Rich and I stayed home and celebrated together. We did this last year as well, and I'm just fine getting to sleep in my own bed:) So, Christmas Eve was spent preparing our feast! As I continually strive to be like my mom, I have to create a dinner that includes several courses, requires using the china, and involves many, many, many pans, which Rich so kindly washed as I went. It was a great team effort! I cooked and he cleaned. Thanks Rich! I write about food a lot. I realize this. But I'm still going to give you the menu. It mostly rocked. Some of it will NOT be tried again, at least not without making some tweaks.

Christmas Eve dinner menu:

Appetizer: Sizzled Shrimp;

Salad/Soup: Roasted Kale with Marinated Red Onions;

Main Course: Garlic Herb Crusted New York Strip Roast, Goat Cheese Gratin Potatoes, Creamy Brussels Sprouts, and Parmesan Rolls;

Dessert: Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake.

Christmas Eve dinner rankings:

Appetizer: meh, it wasn't hard and I could have put more effort in this category, but it was warm, toasty shrimp, so I won't complain;

Salad: I over-toasted the kale. But it was still really good. Have I mentioned that kale is my new favorite veggie? I used the rest of the kale last night actually and tried to make the recipe again. I didn't over-toast the kale the second time around. But I did drench it with too much olive oil. I'm guessing my third try WILL CONSIST OF KALE WONDERMENT;

Main Course: DISASTER. Well, the Brussels sprouts were delish. But I've actually made these before, so I knew that they rocked. The potatoes were actually a huge disappointment. They weren't bad, per se, but next time I would double the sauce/goat cheese mixture. Cuz' really, the potatoes were just bland and dry. And I should have known that 1/3 cup of bread crumbs on the top was just asking for bad things to happen. The roast was AMAZING. The second day. We barely got to eat any meat with dinner because the roast that was supposed to only take 1.5 hours to cook to medium rare took over 4. I'm not sure what happened there. But the leftovers were really good, so I'm imagining that this would have rocked that night had the meat thermometer told me the truth about the inner heat of the roast;

Dessert: OMGOSH BEST DESSERT EVER. Srsly. You should make it. It was actually pretty easy, and who doesn't like Nutella? Plus, I got to buy a new Springform pan and discovered a $50 gift card to Bed, Bath, & Beyond that I didn't know I had.

Okay, so, we ate our dinner by candlelight, and it was wonderful and fun. Then we read the Christmas story out of Luke and sang Christmas carols. Rich loves this. Mainly because this year I insisted on playing some of the carols on the piano (I've been taking lessons. Have I mentioned this? I LOVE IT. I'm like a 7 year old all over again!), and I'm not good enough to sing and play at the same time. So Rich performed some solos. He has a great voice though, so it was like he was serenading me about the baby Jesus. After this we were boring and went to bed.

And Christmas morning we had presents! Miracles! Rich got the tool grinder he'd been eying. And I got a dress from Shabby Apple (which Web site I'm constantly looking at. While the dresses are pretty, I'm almost positive I love the dresses more because of their cute names). I also got Rich a subscription to Popular Mechanics in hopes that he might read something, and he actually likes it! And as a family we got Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders! Yay! I made Rich play these Christmas morning. He was thrilled. We also pulled out the pipe chimes and ingeniously hung them on the weight set so the two of us could play them. My family normally plays these at our Christmas party (see previous post), but we ran out of time, and I was sad. So we rigged this set up and played some tunes. We are precious.

The Saturday after Christmas we went over to Rich's dad's house for Christmas with his family. AND I GOT THE BEST RANDOM COOKING STUFF! So happy that Williams-Sonoma provided me with such a wonderful Christmas! How cute is this mini scone pan? Can you just imagine the teensy delish scones that will come from this? So excited! I made ebelskivers (which are DANISH pancakes, NOT SWEDISH pancakes as I've been telling everyone) on New Year's morning with my new pan. I also attempted to use my new star-shaped pancake molds on Saturday but this proved to be a disaster. Rich got two sad, deformed almost-stars before I gave up and decided that round pancakes were good enough. I did try to make a Mickey Mouse-shaped pancake, but alas, I am not my father and could not do this. So, the message is: Dad, come back to America and teach me how to make pancakes that look like Mickey Mouse. I also got to use my new fancy-shaped bundt pan on Sunday night when I so generously made a bundt for our neighbors who just had a baby. Nothing says "WONDERFUL ABOUT YOUR OFFSPRING!" like a bundt cake.

Rich, on the other hand, did not get cooking fun from his dad and Coralie. He got a self-centering wood chuck for his lathe and a power pack/battery charger thing. We are so different:) But he was happy. And that's what's important.

So, um, that was Christmas! LOVED being home with Rich. LOVED not having to rush to catch the bus in the morning. And LOVED that it snowed so we had a white Christmas. I really am grateful for such a wonderful holiday, one that wasn't solely focused on presents or cooking, though that's what all I've written about.

Millett BINGO Fun!

We had the Millett family Christmas party on December 20th. AND WE PLAYED BINGO. We even used a vintage, still-in-the-original-box Bingo set purchased sometime in the 1960s, I'm guessing. It has a roller cage and real wooden balls. I love my grandma for finding this game in her basement so all the Millett kids could relive our childhood Christmas memories.

I was supposed to be the caller, but since I was sick and had man voice, Rich stepped in. His enthusiasm for the game got the entire family super excited.

After the Bingo was done and the kids had some prizes to placate them, we had dinner. Brad was delirious with joy because of our menu choice. Nachos. Brad actually was smiling with the giddiness of a 5 year old for much of the night and joyfully exclaimed "This is the best dinner ever in the history of the world!" Or something equally nerdy and funny. The nachos were good though. Good idea Dawn!

After dinner we talked to my parents on Skype so that they could be included in the family fun. We ran out of enough time in the night, however, and didn't have time to play the pipe bells like we normally do. This was apparently the worst thing we could have ever done. I'm pretty sure Nicholas is scarred for life that we didn't do the bells. I was pretty scarred too. (I made Rich play them with me on Christmas day. See a later post.) However, Erik and Troy were not scarred for life. More relieved. But we all still got our annual ornaments from my mom and my grandma, so at least we didn't abandon all of the Millett family traditions.


Also, note to self: Learn how to take better and more pictures!