Happy New Year!

Good evening, Bloggy Friends.

I just want to start by saying that I hope 2009 is your best year yet! I can't believe it's already here. This year flew by, but it was full of so many exciting adventures. I took several fun trips, met with a ton of my dearest friends, got a new puppy that I love and adore, successfully completed my first full-year at Temple and had a chance to spend quality time with my family. It has been such a blessed year. These things I mentioned only begin to describe the reasons why 2008 was such a fantastic year. Thank you so much for being a part of it, and for letting me be a part of yours.

We had a great New Years Eve. We met our friends Kaushik and Kaushiki at a restaurant in town called Bistro La Baia. This is an authentic Italian restaurant I went to once before when my Dad was in town. The food wasn't as great as I remembered it, but we all had a great time. After dinner we decided return home to watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN. Kaushik and Kaushiki hit the clubs, but I just couldn't deal with all that.

Today we have been in major chillout mode. We started our morning with mimosas. My dad gave me a fruit and vegetable juicer for Christmas, so we were so excited to use fresh oranges in our drinks. They were fantastic. We have an extra bottle of sparkling wine, so we may have to start our day with mimosas tomorrow too! It has been a tradition of mine for several years to eat cabbage on New Year's day. I've heard it is supposed to create good luck throughout the year. I'm not a superstitious person, but it's fun to have traditions like that. We went to the grocery in the afternoon to buy things to make a traditional Russian stew called borscht. The recipe called for a huge array of fresh ingredients like celery, crushed tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, beets, black eyed peas and of course cabbage. It was so healthy and so delicious. I feel lucky already! Do you guys do anything interesting to start the new year off with a bang?

I'm really looking forward to the coming year. I don't start back to school until the 20th, so I have practically a month to kick back and take it easy. I plan to do a lot of reading, watch some old movies and maybe make a few bloggy videos. Stay tuned! I hope your year has started on the right food. I hope to see you in 2009!

Love, Josh