Ending 2011 (photo heavy)

Last year...er... 2010, Cory and I rang in the new year surrounded by family and friends at his sister's wedding. It was so much fun that we knew we wanted to do something equally as enjoyable this year, too. Since we take 3 days to celebrate Christmas (Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Day-After-Christmas), our Christmas break was limited to just a week. We headed down to Reston, Virginia to hang out with our friends Rich and Beth for our annual mix swap and Anthro shopping trip. Since it's been so unusually warm in the mid-Atlantic region, the boys were actually able to put their new golfing gear to use and hit the links! Crazy! Meanwhile, Beth and I hung out and ran errands. We had a lovely dinner with Beth's family and played games as well. 

After making it home around midnight on Wednesday night, we decided to take it easy on Thursday by eating a yummy pancake breakfast, taking care of a sick kitty, solidifying our New Years plans, listening to last bit of Christmas music, reading books, and cleaning the house. I put up the new curtains I picked up at World Market with Beth (I LOVE the pop of color they bring to our mix-match living room) and ran a few last minute errands around town with Cory. We treated ourselves to a slice of pizza from a local pizza shop that we adore and hit the sheets early for a full night's rest.

 (those are sneaks of a new crochet project I'm working on!)

Friday morning we woke early, cleaned out our closet and packed for a New Year's trip to New York City! So fun! No, we didn't hit up Time's Square; instead we headed out to Queens to bring in 2012 with a small group of friends. Before the ball dropped, though, Lisa and I decided to go thrifting in her new neighborhood, Gramercy. My oh my, there was a lot of wonderful thrifting. I scored an entire outfit for $30, which made me crazy happy. There was so much furniture I had my eye on, too. We also got a mani/pedi together... a typical Liz & Lisa thing to do whenever we're around one another :) 

We also went to a few neighborhood spots to check out their Christmas attire... like Rolf pub that was so incredibly over the top, I couldn't even focus! CRAZY!

We also went to Molly's, that had a less distracting, more-able-to-focus atmosphere. ha!

For dinner on New Year's Eve, we wanted it to just be the 4 of us in their apartment, so Lisa and I decided use the pasta maker Cory and I gifted her and Kevin (for housewarming in September) and make a home-cooked Italian meal full of pasta, meatballs, and garlic bread! We had so much fun figuring out how to use the pasta maker. I felt like it was the perfect gift for such a lovely Italian couple :)

We headed to Queens around 9 p.m. and had a great time playing the best card game ever, Cards Against Humanity. It is so much fun and totally inappropriate!  I only have a few cell phone shots from the night, but I know there are a ton of photos floating around.. so once my friends post them, I'll share them with you.

How did you put an end to 2011?