Christmas in Ohio #3 - Eaton & Columbus

On Friday the 30th, we headed to Eaton to see Katie's parents.  Katie requested that her old favorite meal be made - Beef and Noodles.  We opened some presents with Katie's parents and just relaxed.  Griffey loves their house because they have a loft where he can run up and down the stairs and look out over the whole house.  Saturday morning, Katie's mom made a big Carico style breakfast with eggs and biscuits and gravy, which is always delicious.  Bob added something new to his holiday decorations this year.... a large Frosty Snowman which he attached to the 2nd Story windows.  I think he wants to be like Tim Allen from the movie, "Christmas with the Kranks".   It was cute and here's hoping that the rest of the neighborhood catches on.

After brunch we headed to Columbus to spend New Year's Eve with some friends, but Griffey stayed back in Eaton with Grandma and Grandpa Carico.

We first went to Charlie's good friend, Jon's parent's house in Dublin for dinner and drinks - well no drinks for Katie, who is now an excellent designated driver.  Jon recently got married back in July at Annapolis, so it was fun catching up with him and his new wife, Lindsey.  After dinner, Katie drove us to one of their fraternity brother's houses also in Dublin and we stayed there to say hello.  One of Charlie's friends just got engaged - they are not only a "Miami Merger" like us, but are also a merger from the 2001 Summer Business in Europe trip!

Next stop was Katie's friend's house also in Dublin (the one in Ohio) - lucky for us, so many people live in Dublin.  Several of Katie's old roommates were there along with husbands and 2 new babies.

Katie announced our big news and started to realize that New Year Eve is not quite the same sober.  Charlie, on the other hand, did not make that realization.  One of our friends who already knew about our announcement brought Katie an O'Douls Non-alcoholic beer to make the holiday seem more festive.  However, Katie determined that beer without the alcohol is just gross.  It was a very fun evening catching up with old friends from college and playing games.

The next day was New Year's Day, however, there were no college bowl games because it was an NFL Sunday.  We watched the 1st half of the Bengals game at a bar with some friends, then Katie's parents dropped Griffey off before we hit the road back to Jersey. We listened to the 2nd half of the game, which was a bummer because they lost.  But after some other team's misfortune, the Bengals got to back into the Playoffs anyways.

This year returning to Jersey was quite different, there was a little bit of snow on the drive thru Pennsylvania but nothing like last year when we returned to 20 inches of snow.  All in all, it was a fun trip back to Ohio for the holidays!