Happy New Year!
Now let me rewind a month and talk about Jon's business Christmas party. It was held at our house (which it has been every year since we have been doing this 5 years now) on Friday December 5. We do dinner followed by an employee bonus auction. This years menu started off with appetizers. We had Spinach artichoke dip, shrimp, cashews, and some dove chocolates and truffles. For dinner we had prime rib roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, spinach salad, pomegranate salad, and squash casserole. For dessert we had pumpkin pie squares, and chocolate cake. Out of all that food I made the mashed potatoes (although Mike, Jon's partner, peeled them), spinach salad (which has avocado and strawberries in it Yummy!!), pomegranate salad (was a big hit I ended up copying the recipe to 3 people), squash casserole, Paula Deens pumpkin squares, and 2 chocolate cakes (with added pudding, chocolate chips, and sour cream into the cake mix to make it extra rich and yummy). I made all of the food the day before except for the spinach salad and mashed potatoes. That way I could focus on cleaning the house while the kids were in school. I shipped the kids off to my parents house for the evening.
The only thing that went wrong with the dinner is that the butcher shop we got the meat from gave us terrible cooking instructions so the meat wasn't quite done when we wanted it to be. Luckily Thomas, the chef, (Jon's brother) was there to help with ideas on how to cook the meat faster. So dinner was only postponed by less than 30 minutes.
After dinner, we had the annual bonus auction. Jon and Mike go out weeks before the party and buy different things that can be auctioned off. Then on the day of the party the employees get an envelope of paper money. The amount they get depends on how long they have been with the company. Along with the envelope of money they get a list of all the things to be auctioned off. And then the bidding begins starting with the item with the most value. This year the top item was a 32" LCD 1080 pi TV. Below are a list of all the auction items.

5th annual auction items
32" lcd tv 1080p

Blue Ray DVD player w/Iron Man movie and hdmi cord

2 Paid vacation days (16 hours at hourly rate)

iPod touch multimedia handheld device

$200 Cash

GPS navigator (never be lost again)

1 day paid vacation (8 hours at hourly rate)

Cash ($100)

Digital picture Frame

Cash ($75)

Chocolate decadence basket.

Movie night basket (Indiana Jones/Hancock)

Portable Stereo (jobsite music!)

Home Depot ($50)

Cash ($50)

Target card ($50)

Restaurant card (Longhorn $50).

Wal-Mart gift card ($50)

Best Buy gift card. ($50)

REI Gift card ($50)

Massager.

AMC Movie Theater ($25)

McDonalds ($25)

Chronicles of Riddick Trilogy

pizza Hut ($20)

Cash ($20)

Artwork

Wendy's ($15)

Subway ($15)

Burger King ($15)

Since I am an employee I get to participate in all the fun. I don't get as much money as a full time employee since I only work about 1 hour a day (except for tax time). I have been there for 4 years so I still get quite a bit of money.
Here are the items I won Wendy's gift card, Mc Donald's gift card, Pizza Hut gift card, Best Buy gift card, Home Depot gift card, Long Horn Steak gift card, GPS Navigator, and the i Pod Touch. Also with some of the auction items they had a bonus item you could pick from. I won 3 of them (and there were only 6 so I won half) a $25 gift card to Target, popcorn tin, and Hershey kisses in a ceramic Hershey kiss. I wanted the digital picture frame but someone else really wanted it so I made them pay a lot for it. I won a GPS last year and gave it to Jon for Christmas so this year I wanted one to give to my parents for Christmas. I know them and no matter how awesome we say something is they wont go out and buy it for themselves or if they do it will take a long time. It took forever for them to get caller Id, and a DVD player. My sister Christa and I one fathers day paid for my dad to had Tivo for a year (they already had the satellite box with Tivo they just never activated it). Now he is hooked and loves it.
After the auction we all ate dessert and then I headed out to pick up the kiddos (about 9:30 pm). It was a fun evening.