Fran's birthday party and more

Fran had another birthday party, as usual.  It started out as a small and innocent (as usual) Christmas Cup of Good Cheer Party and grew to a make lots of food and buy lots of alcohol party (as usual) and have more people over (as usual) than originally intended...and turned out to be a lot of fun (as usual).

Friends from the neighborhood, a few from the squadron, and some from past assignments all showed up and we had a good time.  We made Wassail (from apple cider), mulled wine, homemade eggnog, and served Fran’s second birthday cake of the week. (there was a slight, uhh...technical, malfunction with her first cake, but no need to go into any gory details on that, right?)

We were supposed to go to Washington DC this weekend to stay Sunday night and explore DC in Christmas spirit, but the weather threatened to be snowy and icy.  We were to pick up our airstream (out for repairs) on Monday on the way back, but we decided to skip DC and pick up the trailer on Saturday instead while the weather was clear.

It turned out to be a lucky move as the weather in DC was cold and here in Yorktown the electrical power in the neighborhood failed Sunday night around dinner time.  So we moved the cooking out to the trailer and had a quiet “campout” in the driveway.  We may not have a household generator, but we have an entire escape pod if we need it.

The power came back on in the middle of dinner, but ended up failing again this morning at about 7am.  We hope they figure it out, as it turns out to be the coldest day of the year so far.  At 10am this morning, it is still only 28 degrees.  It was a bit chilly by the time we got up to make breakfast.  

Even though the power was out, it was interesting to know we still had email and internet b/c of our iPhones can still get to the 3G web service.  We could monitor the weather channel, send out email updates if we needed help, and of course use the phone to contact emergency services.  I think that the iPhone is a remarkable "phone" and most applications are still fairly narrow in their usage, but the capabilities the iPhone brings (internet and email even without local power) could make it a game changer in survival/disaster scenarios.  I wish I were an iPhone programmer...I'd whip up some type of "Swiss army knife" survival suite of apps....compass, GPS coordinate marking, Emergency Bulletin Service monitoring, National Weather Service monitoring tool.

We getting together with Al and Sharon for Christmas, so I’m busy organizing the Christmas dinner contributions we’ll take over.  I think we’ve settled on:

City ham recipe (courtesy Good Eats) http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/city-ham-recipe/index.html
        (recipe starts at the 2:50 mark on this youtube clip--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLVBmMxl0X8&feature=related)
Maple Orange Glaze (courtesy Cooks Illustrated)
Best Sweet Potato Pie (courtesy Cooks Illustrated) which was a big winner at Thanksgiving...
Egg Nog Ice cream (courtesy Good Eats) http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggnog-ice-cream-recipe2/index.html
        on a nearby web page you can find the recipe I used to make the regular egg nog served at the Christmas Good Cheer Party that garnered rave reviews. I suspect the ice cream version will go over well also.

Here’s the leaf cam snap for the day, very cold and clear.  All leaves now gone!