The Quotemaster Returns!
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007After much harrassing, Shanley has resumed his role as quotemaster. You can check out his new quotes website at:
Archive for January, 2007
Holiday Roundup
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007It’s been a while since my last post, so I thought I’d summarize the major points of this recent holiday season in one massive brain dump.
Katy and I returned to Minnesota a few days before Christmas to partake in the holiday festivities. Christmas gatherings were a daily occurrance, and the first one we attended was the Holmquist Christmas party. As always, we had a great time celebrating with Katy’s mom’s side of the family, though sadly this may be the last year for this Christmas tradition, as the kids of the family are growing up, and there is talk about splitting the gathering up into the composing families. (More talk on this later) Pictures of the evening are available here.
Christmas eve was celebrated at my parents house where the Thorsells joined us for dinner. Tiffany was gracious to bake pies from scratch, and the were delicious, despite it being her first attempt at such a baking endeavor. Following dinner at my parents house, we went to the midnight service at Gethsemane which, ironically, has been moved to 10:30-11:30p.m. Traditionally this service is shifted a half hour later, but our working theory is that that time was changed so that services on Christmas Eve morning, Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning could all start at 10:30. This year was a little strange because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday.
Christmas morning we opened presents at Katy’s parents house with Katy’s grandma. Katy gave her mom and grandma Maui photo books she had created using iPhoto and printed using the online service. I must say, that setup is pretty snazzy. The books look really good, and both Katy’s grandma and mother were in tears when they saw them.
After Christmas afternoon, we returned to my parent’s house to celebrate with the Hove side of the family. The party was smaller than usual as several people had to work (that’s what happens when you have a family of firefighters, policemen and EMTs) but everyone had fun.
Christmas eve night we returned to Katy’s parents house for the traditional crab leg dinner. I look forward to that every year, and as always, it was delicious. We also opened up a couple bottles of wine we picked up in Maui. After dinner Mike (my father-in-law) and I watched Superman returns on DVD. Nothing says Christmas like the man of steel.
While that wrapped up our traditional holiday parties, the festivities just kept on coming. On the 26th the Zielske’s came over for dinner at my parents house, along with their three girls. The girls always love to see Kendra and Tiffany (who was also there) and Jonathan and I hadn’t gotten together in while so everyone had fun.
On the 27th, Katy and I had to head back to Champaign so that we could drive down to Tennessee the following morning. Unfortunately, in what’s becoming and unwanted Christmas tradition, that night Katy suffered another bought of stomach flu. This is the second year in a row that she’s gotten sick just after Christmas, on almost exactly the same days. Last year we think it was caused by Norovirus, found in some bad cheese dip from Don Pablos. This year we’re not quite sure what was going on, though thankfully, it was a lot more mild. Katy was over the worst of it in 12 hours, but she still felt nausious, and opted to stay in Champaign while I drove down to Tennessee.
I left for Martin Tennessee before 8 a.m. the following morning, and got into town by 12:30. Together with part of the previous day, I drove 800 miles in 24 hours. I think that’s a personal record for me, but I know it doesn’t really hold a candle to some people in my family. My cousin Nicole routinely drove from the outskirts of Pittsburgh to her home in Carroll Iowa, which was somewhere around 13 hours.
Doug and Heather’s wedding was lovely. The church was decorated beautifully as was the fellowship hall. Without Katy there, my pictures from the event weren’t the greatest, though they can be viewed in their entirety here.
After the wedding was over, I hung out with Dusty and Laura, who took me on a tour of rural Tennessee. It was cool to be able to put visuals with some of places Dusty, Laura, Heather and Doug talk about. The highlight of the tour was 1/50 scale reproduction of the Eiffel Tower in Paris Tennessee. Laura and I took pictures in front of it, but Dusty was too much of a pansy, and hid in the car to avoid being seen by local residents. We also stopped at Laura’s parent’s house to celebrate their tradition of lighting the Christmas tree and singing Christmas carols. Laura’s parents make really good ginger bread cookies.
The next day we drove back to Champaign. Dusty road with me while Laura finished up a few errands before coming home. For New Years, Dusty, Laura, Katy and I went to Texas Road House and rented movies. Over the last few days, we’ve also been playing a lot of classic video gams. I’ve been assembling a collection of the old school console systems. I currently have an NES, Sega Genisis, Virtual Boy, Playstation, PS2 and we have a Super NES on the way. Combined with 4 TVs, that can be a rock’n good time.
Phew! That pretty much wraps it up for this holiday season. I guess I’ve learned my lesson not to put of posting, or else it turns into a marathon…