A good weekend

Friday night Jen and I had a dinner date with Ben and Amy at a little Russian Restaurant called Moscow on the Hill.  It was pretty fun, the foods were good, the staff was fast, and several vodka shots tastings were had.  They had more choices of vodkas and specialty drinks then there are pine needles on a tree.  My main entree was a pork dish with apples and almonds inside it, and it was very flavorful.  Jen ordered a salmon fillet with dumplings on the side.  She raved about the dumplings.  I tasted the salmon and thought it was the best I'd ever had in the Midwest.  The appetizer was very good as well, it was a smorgasbord of things, and surprisingly, we all were digging the beat salad the most.  I' would definitely do it again.

Saturday morning Jen and I ran around picking up the house a little, wrapping presents, and last minute shopping.  Ben stopped over after his shopping was done for the day, and we set up to tie flies around the kitchen table for the next four hours.  We did take a brief break with a quick visit to the Fly Angler down the road, as I needed some more hooks and beads for the pattern I was tying.  We just plain enjoyed the day, a couple of cocktails (our friends bourbon, spiced rum, and crown paid us a visit), tied a few flies, had Christmas music on in the background.  Later on in the evening I did some consolidating of my many random post it notes listing flies to tie and made a consolidated list that was more manageable to read then my various chicken scratches on yellow squares.  Overall, I'd call that a good day.

Sunday we didn't leave the house.  I made a hearty breakfast, we paid some bills, spent some time  on both the wisflyboard and then on the Flytyingforum websites, opened our stocking stuffer gifts to each other, and then I was back to the fly tying bench with football on in the background and VH1's top 40 videos of the year.  Inspired by a fly pattern I saw online today and by the theme of the flies I'd been tying the past week or so, I came up with a neat pattern.

Hook:  TMC 3761 #12
Thread: 8/0 Olive Uni-Thread
Tail/shuck: 2 strands of pearl accent flashabou
Body: Ultra-wire green (size brassie) and Ultra-wire copper (size medium)
Thorax: Black UV Ice Dubbing
Hackle: Hen English soft hackle