Holiday Recap and Happy New Year

So one of my new years resolutions will be to start blogging more, every day perhaps, and in a more timely manner. How hard could that be (I'll let ya know later). This is all starting tomorrow, it's not even new years yet, thank goodness, since I've already ruined one pumpkin pie (oven set to broil gosh darnit), and made a Mexican version of these scrumptious things (note, even though carnitas are marinated in orange juice, they still will not work for an Asian type dish, and you should really use a bamboo steamer). Perhaps I'll start a Pioneer Woman and me blog, ala Julie and Julia, 365 days of ruining the recipes posted on her lovely blog. Tomorrow I'm attempting the Leftover Turkey Pot Pie, with my dad's leftover smoked turkey. A prepared Trader Joes foods blog might also be in the works, as in addition to the carnitas, I used their buttermilk biscuits and have frozen veggies and pie crust for said pot pie - scratch that idea.

Now that I've wished you all a Happy New Years (of if not, consider it done), it's back to the holiday recap. We all had two full weeks off, where we tried not to stress too much about the fact that our future employment prospects are a bit grim. Think this was my first unpaid holiday in about 15 years, yikes.

I tried to reintroduce Hanukkah, lighting the menorahs nearly every night and getting gifts for the kids for the first time in a few years. Having never had that Christmas morning feeling, I've been living that through my kids and ignoring this fun but frankly pretty low key holiday. I actually didn't get any gifts, so good think I'd finally bought myself the coat I've always wanted and some cute boots.

I brought these scrumptious things into the classroom, and gave each class a little lesson in Hanukkah.

This color-your-own ornament was one of their Hanukkah gifts. Not surprisingly, it's much easier to find little Christmas themed items than Hanukkah. I refused to spend $10 on a snow globe with a dreidel inside.

Sad as Pelota was after losing her brother, she got into the spirit with a jaunty holiday scarf.

We were very fortunate to get to spend the holidays in Mexico. This is something I did a number of times as a child, and it's not quite as fun when you're the parent. We did have a wonderful time, although I missed the snow we saw the last two Christmas's.

You can see the boys had tons of fun, hardly even complaining during the day long "Jungle tour" which was actually a bus trip to a restaurant, cliff diver and tequila distillery (why yes, there were free tastings).

I have to say, wearing a bikini did not turn me back into the flirty teenager that I remember. They actually had tequila volleyball every day at the pool, but without a co-hort to join in, or a husband that drinks, I just could not get in the spirit.

No worries, though, I had plenty to drink. The owner of their restaurant brought over a tequila slammer at the beginning of the meal, and finished us off with this Kahlua and Bailys concoction. Too bad I had to drink both.

The most fun we had was the Pirate cruise, and there you see our personal pirate, Choco - yum.

Happy New Year, everyone, from the Pachuka boys!