Hanging out in Da'Burgh

We got to Pittsburgh Christmas day about 3:30, after a harrowing drive in the rain with a rental car that did not want to stay on the road. Jason's hands were in a death grip after 3 hours of trying hard to keep us all alive, while Kelsey and I slept. (me, fitfully...as I kept jerking awake every time we slipped to see if we were all about to die. Then I'd go back to sleep).

Christmas night we had dinner at Grandma Flo's house. It was the three of us, Mary and Hugo, Grandma Flo, Ron and Gail, and Robert. Lovely evening, and really good food. The next day, Megan and Robby arrived and Robby met everyone. We all dressed up in our finery, opened stockings in the living room, and went to the Duquesne Club for dinner. The same people, without Robert, met us there, and in addition was Ron's son Jordan and Mary's brother and sister-in-law from Colorado, Glen and Joanne.

Mary and Hugo had arranged a private room with a big dining room, a living room area and bathroom, so we all had some drinks and opened our secret santa gifts (I got a quilt kit!), then had dinner. As usual, it was delicious and I felt like I needed to be rolled out of the room. We then took Robby on a tour of the place, and went to the Men's Bar for a nightcap before coming home exhausted.

The next day Megan and Robby left and it was a pretty relaxing day. Jason took Kelsey driving while I hung around the house, then that night we went to see Ron and Autumn sing at a local bar/restaurant. There was a huge crowd of relatives there too, so many more people to see and say hi to.

Tonight there are about 20 relatives coming to Mary and Hugo's for a pizza party. Unfortunately, both Kelsey and Jason got my cold and are both fighting to breath right now. I think there will be many infected people after the party tonight :-(

Back in PA

After a very long day on Tuesday, we're finally back in Pennsylvania. I feel really lucky that our flight was Tuesday and not yesterday, because Denver had a gigantic snowstorm yesterday that closed the airport, and that's where we connected through. No problems on the flight except it just takes so damn long to get across the country. I can't wait until we can teleport.

We met Jonathan for dinner Tuesday night, he drove up from State College. It was really good to see him - he's lost 60 pounds since he started running, and he looks fantastic! I don't know why some girl hasn't snapped him up yet :-) We spent a few hours catching up, but he had to drive back to State College and work the next day, so it was a short visit.

Yesterday I spent the day being miserable, as I have a cold and had a raging headache most of the day. Kelsey spent the night at Pam's, so I was in bed by 7:30 at the hotel. I had a hard time getting to sleep though because of my headache, and then when we both were finally asleep, the phone rang. The hotel mixed up our 10:00 am wakeup call with a 1:oo am wakeup call. After a lot of tossing and turning and yet more aspirin, we finally went back to sleep. Luckily, I had set my phone alarm after the 1 am wakeup call, so it went off at 10, and I feel so much better. We're now off to take my mom to her eye appointment. Maybe I can finally enjoy being home today :-)

Christmas Party

Last night was fun. We mostly just ate and bowled...and had a few drinks (I had quite the headache this morning). No Wi for us, but Jason won a $50 gift card for Best Buy, so his winning streak continues. I said yesterday that I'm no Kris Kiner...but my husband is. I think this is the fourth thing he's won, and that's just when I've been with him. Heaven knows how much stuff he's been winning without me!

Kelsey is done with school for the year tomorrow. They have an hour early release, and then that's it for 2006. I think she's really looking forward to her break :-) She seems to like school a little better this year, but I think she'd still prefer not to go to school at all...she's just ready to start college. Three more years, after this one.

Terribly icky day today, so it was nice to come home and put on some jammies and watch the recording of The Biggest Loser...holy cow, the winner lost 214 pounds! That's amazing! He looked really good, as did all of them. Good for them for getting that done. Now getting ready for The Office and Survivor. We love Thursdays :-)

Busy times

Whew, it's been a while since I posted. Time has gotten away from me. I've been super busy these last weeks getting ready for Christmas....and I don't even have to worry about a tree, or decorations, or anything! But I've been doing a lot of shopping and even if most of it has been online, it's been time consuming. I think I'm done now though.

Tonight is Jason's company Christmas party. It's at some place called Garage downtown...it's like a billiards/bowling/bar place. They've booked a private room with 6 bowling lanes, some pool tables, and they're going to have some Texas Hold'em, Blackjack, and Craps tables set up. Same as last year, you use fake money to play, you trade your winnings in for tickets, and the tickets go into a drawing for prizes. Last year they gave away an X-Box 360 as their big prize. I'm no Kris Kiner, I didn't win anything. But it was fun anyway :-) Food, free drinks, and a bit of fun. Too bad it's just for adults, so Kelsey has to stay home :-(

Less than a week until we leave for PA and a whirlwind of Christmas activity. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update before then, so Merry Christmas!

Oh, P.S. I got an A in Anthropology! I'm so glad that class is over.

Friday Harbor

Today we woke up rather early at the campground....I guess going to bed so early makes us get up early too. The girls walked around the campsite while I made breakfast tacos. We went and got some firewood from the office so we had mid morning s'mores too :-). We decided we would take the later ferry to Friday Harbor, and then have dinner there and come home.

The ferry was at 2:40, which got us to Friday Harbor at 3:45. It was so pretty there. Kelsey and I thought it reminded us of some of the towns in Alaska that we stopped in on our cruise last summer. There was still snow on the ground, and the stores were all decorated with lights for Christmas. It really is a pretty town. The only problem was all the shops closed at 5:30, and we had decided to eat before shopping, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to see much. Then we had to wait until 6:45 for the return ferry to Anacortes. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the girls waiting to board.

There were only about 8 of us on board for the trip home, so it was pretty quiet. We got back to the cabin about 8:30 and everyone is in pajamas already. It's just too cold to sit outside, and we're out of firewood already :-) But I think the girls had a good time, so I'll say the trip was a success.

Birthday Camping

It's the first night of Kelsey's big birthday camping weekend. It took me 45 minutes longer to drive here than I had planned on, because the traffic was so bad on I-5. We couldn't leave as early as I would have liked because Elizabeth doesn't get home from school until almost 4, so we were on the road by 4:30. Got here at 6:15, the office was closed but the cabin lights were on, and the heat was on, so it was all good. The girls helped unpack, then put on their swimsuits and headed for the hot tub while I made dinner. I couldn't find where they keep the wood, but luckily I had picked up some charcoal today at the grocery store, so I made hot dogs on the portable grill. There are actually more people here than I would have expected for December.

After dinner we had ice cream cake - quickly melting ice cream cake - and then Kelsey opened her presents from Ayla and one from me and Jason. Ayla did a fantastic job on the presents. Kelsey got a Hanson book, a guitar pick necklace signed by Taylor Hanson, some knitting supplies from Ayla's mom, and a Wentworth Miller totebag. She was utterly thrilled by all of it. She got a video camera from me and Jason, and she says it's cute, so I hope she likes it. Seems pretty easy to work.

They're now in the other room of the cabin playing a game while I relax in bed. It's only 9 pm but since I can't find any wood we're not going to be sitting outside anytime soon. Hopefully I'll be able to score some tomorrow so I can make eggs for breakfast :-)