Practice Dog

For at least 3 years I have been begging Ryan to get us a dog. I started begging long before we were even engaged in the hope that it would break his resolve and he would crumble. Anyway... this weekend we have been taking care of Lilly who honestly is probably as well behaved a dog as one could ever hope to babysit. Still, living on the 22nd floor and having to go out in the cold requires one to psych themselves up to do it all winter. We only have Lilly for a few days! Hopefully she has enjoyed her time with us. I know she scoped out all the good spots on the bed and the couch but she also seems to be comfortable on her make-shift bed of red blankets on the floor..

Our First Thanksgiving

This eagerly anticipated holiday has finally come and gone. It was my first day off from work (enough reason to celebrate in itself) and it was great to sleep in and cook for the whole day. We started with a visit to the MacDonald's Thanksgiving parade which was conveniently 5 minutes away and then returned home to take care of our new charge, Lilly, a chocolate Lab who we are lab-sitting for the weekend. More about Lilly later. I then spent the rest of the day making a green bean casserole and baking the real pumpkin pies. At around 5pm we went over to some friends for Thanksgiving dinner and preceded to eat far too many m and m cookies (mmm), have many helpings of stuffing, mash potatoes, turkey and yams (!) and then roll out home in -10C weather. It was great!! 

Thanksgiving Morning

 Normally I would not treat myself to tea at Starbucks (...) but it being below freezing and Thanksgiving morning, I felt I could justify my purchase.

 I think it's Yogi bear in the back.

Thanksgiving Dinner

 Some Dutch/American salad making.

 Dublin. Lilly's mate for the evening. The two were quite a pair and put on a good show for us.

 The best cookies in the world. Butter, Peanut Butter, Chocolate and super goodness.

The Langes did an incredible job of hosting their first Thanksgiving dinner especially as the majority of the guests were experiencing Thanksgiving for the first or second time - that's pressure!

 Wobbie in love with his green bean, turkey and mas potato roll.

 Thanksgiving is not complete without some stellar guitar hero.

Channeling some Dark Knight in Chicago.

Baking Frenzies

Winter and the festivities it's brings, has caused a banking avalanche in our apartment... Having my kitchen back again has been wonderful and I have had to properly re-initiate it with a range of breads, rusks, pies and tarts. Although a little challenging, I managed to make homemade pastry for my raspberry tarts and the practice pumpkin pie gave me the nod to make it again for thanksgiving. Although I will never be Ouma and I can't get any Ouma rusks in the Northern hemisphere, I attempted to recreate the voortrekker standard to help me get excited for the freezing weather that is now upon us.  

 Practice pumpkin.

Real Pumpkin.

Fudge for work pot luck.

 Raspberry Tarts.

"Ouma Rusks."

Golden Gargoyles

Ryan is a LEAD (Leadership Effectiveness and Development) facilitator for Chicago Booth. Essentially he spent a lot of time planning and running modules around leadership for the incoming first year students. Most of the preparation is done before the first years start in September. LEAD was also the reason we left SA so soon after the wedding and straight after Ryan's internship in London. In short, LEAD has been very time-consuming. And, so to celebrate the end of it for the second year LEAD facils and for the first years who have now completed the modules, Golden Gargoyles is held every year. Each year is a different theme - this year Heroes and Villains. The students are divided into groups called cohorts and each cohort creates a video about business school. The facils review the video and oscar style nominate the best ones to be shown at Golden Gargoyles. Awards in each category (best video, best soundtrack, best staff cameo etc) are presented by the facils throughout the evening. Golden gargoyles is also the arena to show off one's dancing skills. This is mandatory and all the facils learn cheoreographed dances to do between awards. To think that some of these people may be running the world one day and are in itsy-bitsy bikinis, bear suits or ninja gear makes me chuckle. Good bribe material me-thinks. Enjoy! 

 The Americans go all out. In the top left corner there is a screen showing the live 'red-carpet' as people walk in and get interviewed. The pictures are a little dark (apologies) but hopefully you get the idea of a stage back centre, a bar on the right with Golden Gargoyles above it, and tables for people to sit at in the foreground.

 Wobbo, looking smooth before the event. 

 Hehe, Ryan in his ninja outfit before his first break out number!

 Some hero and villain outfits.

 Ryan contemplating his next ninja kick! It was hilarious! But he did such a great job so well done!! We were super impressed at his coordination!

Viewer Discretion Is Advised! 

 Mini me!! Brilliant!!

 Some super powers!

 My favourite dance - Mario and Luigi!!

Here come the Men in Black!

 Ryan presenting his award. Looking suave.

Ah the African with the blow-up AK-47..

 By far for me this was the most original costume for Heroes and Villains of the night. Depending on your view point, The Pill could be a hero or a villain..

Giggle.

Halloween!!!!!

As a South African, we are good at many things. Halloween unfortunately is not really one of them. Whether it's our hesitance to go trick 'n treating and get trick 'n hijacking or the fact that Hallmark hasn't really caught on, or that in this instance, we don't want to be American, I'm not sure. Either way, you haven't really experienced Halloween until you've trekked North. 

 

 

 

Halloween did kind of creep up on me because I had just started work and was adjusting to all that rather that plotting the perfect costume. Ryan and his friends decided to go as the cast of "The Big Lebowski" (I hope some of you have seen it so that you know what I'm talking about) and they kindly offered me the part of Tara Reid who spends the entire movie in a green bikini. Kind. Sweet. Thoughtful boys, only looking out for my best interests. I politely declined. But now the issue was, what could I be. Ryan came up with the ingenious plan to be a bowling ball as the movie is all about bowling. This is what I was supposed to wear for Halloween 2010:

 

Great, right? As you can see this is not me :( We ordered the costume online and thought we were so original and clever but unfortunately we got an email the day before Halloween saying that it would be unable to be delivered. I was so upset! But perhaps in hind sight, I had an easier time getting around not being a bowling ball. I ended up going to a Halloween shop and getting a Queen Bubble Bee costume. The bubble bee was also on the list as a classic for first time Halloweeners - usually when you're a baby - but hey I have a lot of catching up to do. Ta daaa! 

 

 No longer a bowling ball, a skittle or in a teeny-weeny green bikini, The Big Lebowski cast had to stand sans props. That's ok. They looked awesome.

Hui was preparing to change into her Solo cup costume which initially I had absolutely no idea what that was. Turns out a solo cup is just that - one of the red plastic cups with a white rim that you use for beer and picnics. She and a whole bunch of others all dressed as solo cups wearing black pants and a read T-shirt with the word 'solo' in big white letters somewhere on them. Inventive if not slightly obscure.

As previously implied, the Americans go all out on Halloween. Swathi and Adam (see our first American wedding) have recently got a puppy, Dexter. Weirdly enough he was a Bubble Bee too in the doggie parade near their apartment.

 

  The rest of the doggies!! For Nala and Fatness below: (If you were American, with ketchup)

 Darth Vader Doggie.

 Snookie from the Jersey Shore. I thought she was supposed to be Cher..