Are you ready?
We stopped at one more place before going home. A bar, just a plain old bar. No red carpets, no crystal chandeliers, just a plain old beer & sandwich joint. We were informed, at the door, however, that we needed a ticket to get in. A $50 ticket. Each. Even with an open bar and champagne toast, $200 for the 4 of us to sit in a bar for 2 hours seemed a little outrageous. We unanimously voted to move on.
Already full of great dinner and oyster dessert, we made one more unanimous decision:
We were home and in our jammies by 10 pm, and Jennifer was learnin' me how to fix a mean Chocolate Martini.
This was, in my eyes, the perfect way to bring in the New Year. You all know I love to socialize with my friends & family. The truth is, though, that I've always been one to shy away from a New Year's Eve party. It's not so much the party that bothers me (clearly) as it is the probable increase of drunk drivers on the road at just after 12 when I'm ready to head home.
Plus, I'm just getting old.
Plus, I can drink all of the chocolate martini's I want in the privacy of
Jen's Chocolate Martini Recipe
Equal parts:
- Vodka
- Godiva Original Liqueur
- Godiva Chocolate Creme liqueur
- Creme de Cacao
- Splash of milk
- Hershey's syrup - depends on how much chocolate you like, she put close to a shot.
She prepared a couple of shakers of these before we went out, and put them in the refrigerator.
She rimmed the glass with chocolate martini sugar:
And lined the inside with a beautiful chocolatey design:
And poured that Chocolate Yumtini right in, on top of all that.
I know I said, in the last blog, that I'd chose oysters over chocolate, but I have to make an exception when it comes to these chocolate martini's. They're my new favorite drink, and I'm going to start picking up the ingredients, one by one, until I can make my own.
They're a little dangerous, also, as they doesn't taste so much like alcohol as it does chocolate milk. Grownup chocolate milk. It's pretty easy to drink another. (And another.) But they are sooooooooo good.
We curled up in our PJs, with our Chocolate Yumtini's, and had story time. Jennifer read "Redneck Night before Christmas" to us, all the way through.
After story time, we played a casual game of Battle of the Sexes, a gender-based trivia game.
The men were asked questions that had answers such as "taffeta" and "quiche," while Jen and I had to come up with manly-man answers like "Gretsky" and "carburetor." Jen and I won, hands down. (It's my blog. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
Before we knew it, the midnight countdown was upon us, and it was time for bubbly:
It doesn't seem fair, does it, that I post photos of everyone else in their pajamas, while I post none of myself. The truth is, I didn't take any photos of myself in my pajamas, and the midnight group photo we tried to take with the self-timer turned out a bit too dark. If Jen sends me any PJ photos of myself or Clint, I promise to put an addendum on this blog. Fair is fair.
After midnight, we did crawl up the stairs—well, actually we weren't that bad off, we actually walked up them to catch some Zzzzzz before the fun following day.
Oh, and when we got there, we found this:
The maid service at Hotel JenBill does the "mint under your pillow" one better.
That, in a nutshell (and 3 blog posts) was our New Years Eve. Lots of good food, good drinks, lolling about comfortably, laughing and talking with people we love.
I can't think of a better way to start a year.
Pajama Addendum:
This is the only pic Jen had, with all of us in it; it was cleverly taken by placing the camera on the mantle, and using the self-timer function. Seems we had a bit of a problem with the flash:
But I was able to salvage it with Photoshop:
Ha! Well, there I am in pajamas, can you tell? I tried, at least I tried.
I can't think of a better way, either! That all sounds extra-fun. I need to go to St. Louis and eat some oysters.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much on martini's - not even chocolate ones. I would be all over the Oreos though! I'm going to complain at the next hotel I'm at that only gives me a mint on the pillow.
ReplyDeleteLisa: Road Trip!
ReplyDeleteSt Farmer: I do love a good dirty martini--you know me and Olives. I've expanded my horizons now, though. I wonder what's next. And be sure to stomp your feet when you get a crappy mint!
Man, I have yet to have a martini of any kind. These sure do look good though...how can you go wrong with chocolate? :-) Happy New Year to y'all!!!
ReplyDeleteKarla: You have a niece that can set us up! Road trippppppppp!
ReplyDeletethat looks like fun... we had an early evening at the Open House of a new friend from church. I was in bed by 9:30; Dave made it to 11:30. I know. We're lame.
ReplyDelete