Anniversary and New Year's

My Romanian potato salad. It's so good. I make it every holiday.

Dacian was rather scared when we had our party popers going off. I think it was more that he was so tired and just lost it. He is not the happiest in this picture but I don't have any other good ones.

My nice vacation is coming to an end so soon. I had a wonderful time off and had a quiet, relaxing Christmas. I enjoyed playing with my kids, cooked less and tried to nap some.

On the 29th my husband and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. Can't believe it's been this long. Shane surprised me with a night's stay at a fancy downtown Seattle hotel. It was so nice to be in the city. We had the kids with us first to go swimming with us. The pool was at the top floor and it was so cool to see all the other tall buildings and the Puget Sound so close by. Beautiful view. Later we dropped off the kids with my parents and then had Raclette ( a Swiss cheese that you melt and pour over potatoes and eat with bacon or other meats and pickles, super yummy) in the room (almost set off the fire alarm) and then had desert at Cheecake Factory. Also we slept in and what a treat that was. I felt like I hadn't done that in years. We then went to Pike Market and walked around and had lunch and desert at a very yummy French Pastry. I love the city. We don't go very often so when we go it's quite a treat. It was so fun to be together just the two of us. Love you Shane, thanks for 8 great years and thank you for a lovely day.

On to New Year's now. We spent it with the whole family at Patrick's house. Taylor, our good friend came too. It was so rad. It was what I think all New Year's parties should be like. We were there until almost 4am. It reminded me of Romania when we stayed up eating, dancing and watching TV all night. It is a night like no other there and I was so glad we got to do that here. They had really good food and music and a projector that was projecting the image on a huge wall. They even had Romanian music manele and I was dancing like a maniac at that point. I really miss Romania especially this time of the year.

I brought deviled eggs and a Romanian potato salad that I shaped into a Christmas tree. It was fun to make and I got this idea from a Romanian food blog.

Our friend, Patrick married this cool girl from Kenya and I just thinks she is the coolest and can't be happier for him. Congrats guys.

Well, that's my latest for now. I wish you all a Happy, prosperous, filled with blessings New Year!