Happy Birthday, Grandma Lois!

Today is my Grandma Lois' 75th birthday! She probably doesn't want anyone to know her age (as she's told me many times), but I think that it's pretty cool that she is 75 years young - it is quite an accomplishment. Here is a recent picture of her (and my grandpa) from the wedding festivities - I think that you'll agree that she does not look 75 :)

Thanks, Talia for the picture!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

The Biggest Loser - Fidler Edition

It has begun: The Fidlers vs. The FidLorbs (Lorbers) vs. The Fid-Baums 'Biggest Loser'-style

Starting November 29th, 2008 and ending on July 1st, 2009 we will be participating in a weight-loss competition with the other Fidler couples. The rules are simple, whichever couple loses the most weight by percentage without any medical or surgical intervention, wins a grand prize. The exact prizes are still being negotiated - some ideas are: a day/weekend at the spa, tickets to Seattle (for non Seattle-ites), a cruise, maybe evening moving to Seattle (hey, I can wish and scheme).

We all weighed in (but I'm not ready to post the starting numbers) and we'll have weight check-ins once a month. Good luck to everyone and may the best couple (the FidLorbs of course) win!

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

Abe and I traveled back to Michigan for the holiday; it was a very quick trip (in on the red-eye Thursday morning and back on the evening flight on Saturday), but it was filled with seeing family, friends, and eating (lots and lots of eating). I also got to show off the wedding scrapbook that I recently finished. It was great to re-live the memories with (almost) everyone in the family.

My mom got up super early on Thursday to pick us up at the airport (thanks, Mom!) and we were able to sneak in a quick nap before heading to the Fidler Grandparents' for a "lite" lunch. Meal #1: Bagels, Cream Cheese, and Lox...mmm Then we journeyed to Pickney, MI for Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's family. It was really fun! There were 35 people there, all of the Wolfe/Vincent cousins were there. It was great to see everyone and to celebrate Zach's 15th birthday! Here is a picture that Andy took of the original Fidler family (I think that Abe was playing foosball with some of the younger cousins.

(Thank You, Andy for the great photo!)

So Meal #2: Traditional thanksgiving dinner with ALL the fixin's. And of course, Marty and Kim made sure we had a turkey cooked with the latest technology...the oil-less deep fryer using infrared technology.

We slept-in on Friday to catch up a bit from our red-eye journey the day before. Then Abe went to H-woods to see his family and hang out with Adam a bit. I ran errands with my mom; it was nice to have some quiet time alone with her. We went over to Aunt Rhona and Uncle Rob's for shabbat dinner. Meal #3: Homemade matzo ball soup, brisket, chicken, and of course a challah from Dakota Bread - THE BEST!!

Abe and I went to Adam and Rhiannon's (the LeeCholski's) house to hang out until the wee hours of the morning. We introduced them to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which Abe and I recently discovered and love. It was a blast and definitely worth the lack of sleep.

Saturday was another all-day eating adventure. We went over to the Lorber's house for Thanksgiving revisited. It was great, my family was there, the LeeCholski's, and a close family friend of the Lorbers. Meal #4: Cold and hot turkey, cold and hot brisket, BBQ chicken, sweet potato pie, stuffing, green beans, multiple salads, and on and on...There was so much food - probably more for the 15 of us than there was for the 35 on Thursday! Somehow, I managed to try almost everything that was on the table - especially Bibi's delicious chocolate cake!

Then it was time to head to the airport and travel back to Seattle. Our flight was fine (though the DVD player ran out of batteries 15 minutes into the first episode of the six episodes of "How I met your Mother" that we had wanted to watch on the plane). We picked up Ronin on our way (he spent thanksgiving with McKenzie, John, Scrappy, and Chance) and finally settled back in at home. We hope you all had as much fun, family, and food that we did this thanksgiving!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

For whatever reason, I have been on a major cookie-baking kick lately. A couple of weeks ago, Abe was really craving oatmeal raisin cookies. As many of you know, I am not a raisin fan, but because I love my husband. Also, making cookies that I won't gobble down 5 at a time is the only safe way to bake homemade cookies so I set off to find a spectacular cookie recipe. Normally, I would have just used the one on the top to the Oatmeal container (thanks Quaker Oats!), but, alas, we store our oats in plastic containers so we didn't have the Quaker recipe.

Then I remembered that Abe's Aunt & Uncle gave us all of the Cook's Illustrated (CI) volumes from the last 10+ years, nicely bound and indexed, for our wedding. A particular gift, yes, but for cooking enthusiasts, it really is a very cool and useful reference to have around. All I had to do was look up "cookies, oatmeal raisin" in the index and Voila! I had a tried and true awesome cookie recipe. The good folks at CI had tested multiple variations and methods to find the perfect recipe for chewy, delicious cookies (just ask the people at Abe's law firm who are the frequent recipients of my cookie-baking marathons). I also whipped up a batch of peanut butter cookies that day along with a tray of rice krispy treats (my fav).

Tonight, we are headed to the Alcantars' for our new Sunday night dinner tradition and we are bringing dessert. I thought it would be fun to make ice cream sandwiches with different varieties of homemade cookies. So I made another (and better this time) batch of Oatmeal Raisin, a batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, and tried my hand at some soft & chewy sugar cookies. So if you need a good cookie recipe this holiday season - let me know and I'll pass along the Cook's Illustrated magic!

The End of College Football Season

As today was the Michigan-Ohio State football game, and this year, marks the end of the Wolverine's 2008 season, I felt it was necessary to say a few words about my beloved Wolverines. It was quite a disappointing season - beyond disappointing really. We knew starting out with a new head coach (Rich Rodriguez) and a lineup heavy with rookies that it was going to be a year of rebuilding and patience. But we still wanted to WIN! Throughout the season, there were moments of excitement and glimpses at future glory; the Wolverines even managed to break a few records. They started the season with the losing-est record in Michigan history, it's the first time since 1967 that they have had an overall losing season, and it's the first time there will be no Wolverine post-season since 1974. Most importantly, today they lost to Ohio State for 5th consecutive time; the most consecutive loses by either team in the history of the 'Greatest Rivalry in Sport'. It is not easy to be a through-and-through maize & blue fan today, but I will hold my head high and 'hail to the victors' nonetheless. Here's to the prospects of 2009 - GO BLUE!

Abe's Quilt is Finally Finished!

Here it is! As a wedding present, I promised to make Abe a memory quilt of all of his old t-shirts. This is something I did for myself in college and the whole family loves to cuddle under it. As a special treat, I quilted Abe's favorite video game character (Mario, of course) on the back. As I am certainly a novice quilter (not to mention that this is the second time in my life I've used a sewing machine) I am very proud and happy with the outcome. Now Abe, Ronin, and I can cuddle under both of the memory quilts!

Abe's a REAL lawyer now!

This is stepping back a bit, but I wanted to share some pictures with everyone who has seen them yet. In October, we got the official notice that Abe had passed the Washington state bar exam - yay! Afterall the years of school and intense studying, Abe could finally practice law...but wait, not quite. First, he had to stand before a judge and recite the oath (I'm note quite sure what it is technically called - Abe?) and sign some papers. I was lucky enough to get to be in the courtroom during the ceremony.

Welcome to life with The FidLorbs!

Let me first explain who the FidLorbs are: me, Stephanie (Fidler) Lorber, my husband, Abraham "Abe" Lorber, and our fabulous pit bull, Ronin. The FidLorb name originated from when Abe and I were dating & engaged (think "Bennifer" and "TomKat" era). We always felt that it was a great way to refer to our egalitarian relationship and once our friends got a hold of it, the name sorta stuck. Though we are all (even Ronin) officially Lorbers now, we still have the Fidler essence in our lives and besides, I like the homage to my roots.

Now for the purpose of the blog. First of all, I have to pay respect to my good friend, Aaron Averbuch. He is an avid blogger about his family and interesting items related to his life and that is really my inspiration to start a blog. Secondly (and similarly to Aaron), I have family and friends living all over the country (and world) and I would love to use this forum to keep them all updated on what's going on with the pacific northwest branch of the family. There is maybe a small third reason: Abe started a blog recently to catalog a restaurant critiquing effort are undertaking and I want my own virtual voice too :)

I have never written a blog, so at least for now, it is going to be very experimental. Stay tuned...