{"id":2369,"date":"2013-01-06T10:22:14","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T16:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=2369"},"modified":"2014-12-29T20:36:13","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T02:36:13","slug":"happy-new-year-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=2369","title":{"rendered":"Happy new year!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NY Day with co-hosts Kellee and Jim<\/p><\/div>\n

We’ve been busy wrapping up 2012 and getting started on 2013!<\/p>\n

Last Sunday night, our friend Christy hosted us for a delicious Tex-Mex dinner party – I don’t know where she found all of the ingredients, but we had great chicken enchiladas, refried beans, rice, chips and dip, etc. It was delicious food and good company.<\/p>\n

Monday was back to work. The weather has still been sunny enough that we can sit outside for lunch, which is nice, considering we don’t really have any windows in our offices. Michael was absent, as he was spending the holidays with his family – good for him! Monday evening was spent preparing for our New Year’s Day brunch that we co-hosted at our house with Jim and Kellee.<\/p>\n

We had a great group on New Year’s Day. We got started around 11 AM and the last folks didn’t leave til 5:30 PM or so. We had blackeyed peas, cornbread, baked purple cabbage (thanks, Muffy!), potato soup, and Kellee’s famous homemade mac-n-cheese. Oh, and ham and John’s delicious smoked chickens! It was a feast, and remarkably, most everything was eaten at the end of the day. We had lots of fun and I think everyone had a good time – a great way to start the new year! Here are a couple more photos:<\/p>\n

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NY Day with Howie and Petit<\/p><\/div>\n

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NY Day with Carla and Mike<\/p><\/div>\n

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We went back to work on Wednesday \u00a0– \u00a0I don’t know what it is about short weeks, but they often seem like longer weeks! I was glad to see Friday roll around – it was just “one of those days” on the visa line. A bunch of us ended up at the Club for happy hour after work – a great way to unwind.<\/p>\n

The good news is that I got back on the horse and was back on the treadmill this week! I’m trying to get to the gym for a short jog after work. John and I were so good during R&R, then it was hard to get back into the swing of things when we returned to Post.<\/p>\n

Saturday was a big day. I met Carla and Kellee at a local Asian restaurant for lunch, then we started a marathon shopping day. We hit our favorite spots, plus we went to the house of a woman who does beautiful (and expensive) marble\/lapiz inlay work. It was typically Pakistani – we showed up at her house while she and her family were eating lunch and watching TV, but she graciously showed us to a back room where she keeps her samples. Beautiful work. The lapiz here is amazing.<\/p>\n

That evening, my co-worker Antonio had several folks over for an authentic Italian meal – recipes from his grandmother – it was probably the best food I’ve had here. Homemade bruschetta, pasta with homemade sauce, steak, rosemary potatoes, and the piece de resistance – from-scratch tiramisu. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! It was a really nice evening with good company. And I was very proud of myself for eventually finding my way home in an intense fog that rolled in!<\/p>\n

While I was out shopping and to dinner, John was enjoying the company of our good friends Scott and Laura, who were teaching him a new board game. I got to visit with them for a while and they seemed to be having a good time:<\/p>\n

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Laura, Scott and John<\/p><\/div>\n

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In our free time, John and I finished the current episodes of “Homeland,” and have started the series, “Justified.” We were pleasantly surprised to see our college friend Bill Ragsdale<\/a> in a recurring role!<\/p>\n

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We’ve been busy wrapping up 2012 and getting started on 2013! Last Sunday night, our friend Christy hosted us for a delicious Tex-Mex dinner party – I don’t know where she found all of the ingredients, but we had great chicken enchiladas, refried beans, rice, chips and dip, etc. It was delicious food and good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2380,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}