Christmas, the other half

The other half of my Christmas was just as great as the first. The only negative: my time at home was too short.

On Saturday, my family and I trekked to George, IA. We spent time with my grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousin from Minneapolis (who I had spend Wed with...yay for lots of time with them!). Right after we arrived, one of my Dad's cousin's and his wife and daughter came to see my Dad and my aunt, and it was nice to see them. We used to gather with my dad's cousins a lot but haven't for ages. After lunch and opening gifts, we headed to church for the early Christmas Eve service. Then we drove around a bit looking at Christmas lights, went home and ate some soup, and opened gifts. Usually after gift opening, we watch a good movie, and Mark and I had rented Batman Begins. However, I had felt queasy all night and was exhausted (the flu?) and Mark had been out too late the two previous nights, so we both went to bed before the movie was over. Who would've thought my Dad would have been the only person to make it through the movie? He's usually asleep within 5 minutes of it beginning! :)

On Sunday, I woke up feeling a little better, not fully. We eased in to the day and got things ready for my Mom's family to arrive that afternoon. Then, we spent Christmas day with them, opening presents, eating snacks non-stop, opening presents, and playing games. I was reminded of our RD Retreat my last year at Whitworth because my cousins played a rousing game of Settlers of Kattan, which we had played at the retreat. I told them the story of how we all ganged up on Alan and played the "don't let Alan win" version. :) I also played a game of Risk with my younger cousins, for which they made up the rules from their memory so we didn't have to read the directions. It didn't really work and we quit early, but it was still fun.

On Monday, my brother and I packed up our stuff and left for Minneapolis. We got in early enough to head to his apartment for a bit, and I'm glad we did because on the way out, we ran in to our cousin Karmin who lives in the same building (which in itself is such a coincidence). It was good to see her briefly. Then we headed to the airport and I began the trip home. I read almost all of my book Stitch 'n Bitch, which I had gotten the day before. An hour in the airport and a 3.5 hour plane ride makes for lots of reading time!

Now I'm back at work, wishing I was still on the school schedule/still on vacation. We rented about 6 or 7 apartments yesterday, which may be a record. This week has been busy with walk-in's looking for housing ASAP since PSU starts classes start in a little over a week. Tomorrow, Brad and Nicole come back to P-Town to start our New Year's festivities. I think this could be a shorter holiday weekend than others since Bill & Joy don't get back to town until the 31st. Oh, well, it's about quality, not quantity, right? :)

Happy New Year to everyone!