Christmas Part III - Christmas Day

* Opening all of my Christmas presents in the morning/afternoon. It took us over 3 hours and there were only 3 of us! We did fiddle with things in the middle, so its understandable. I love the stuff I got, from the fuzzy pj pants to the game controller

* Finishing my "Labrador Retrievers for Dummies" book. It was a great read and I learned a ton of new stuff. I'm extremely ready to get a dog! Then comes the hard part of picking a name







* Relaxing, having fun, and eating turkey!

* Getting ready to travel to Pittsburgh. The weather looks good and we're set to go. As a side note, this means that this will be my last blog post for just over a week, but rest assured that there will be plenty of positive things happening in the mean time, most of which I will probably forget by the time I try to post them.

Christmas Part II

* Brian and Crystal were over most of the day yesterday (Christmas Eve) and we exchanged gifts in the middle of the day. They got me (among some other stuff) a book entitled "Labrador Retrievers for Dummies" which I am now more than halfway through already. I finally got to the training part, but have completed the choosing, grooming, feeding, and caring parts. I can't wait til I get a dog! After all, to quote the book : "The yellow lab puppy is, quite possibly, the cutest dog in the world."* Going to my parent's church for Christmas Eve

* Playing board game with my Mom

Christmas Vacation Begins

* A safe drive from VA to SC where I will be for a few days before heading to Pittsburgh. The drive actually went faster due to a work telecon that I listened to for 3 hours on the trip. The bonus to that is that I didn't have to use vacation time while I was on the telecon.

* A fun Christmas party for community group, complete with too much food, white elephant gift exchange, and games

* A quite fun and entertaining Christmas party at Angela's

* Winning the tacky sweater competition at Angela's party

* Meeting new people, even if I didn't really remember any of their names by the time I got home.

* No more work for a while!

* Seeing most of my fam again

* Seeing TONS of presents under the tree...actually, most of them don't fit under the tree. (pictures to come in future posts)

* Way too many other things I've come up with in the past few days too list them all

Satisfied Cravings

* Getting free pizza at our AMA bi-monthly "brownbag" meeting! I had been craving pizza for quite a while. So much so that I made pizza last night for dinner knowing we were having pizza for lunch :) Good stuff. This is the most attended brownbag...because:

* Annual end of the year bonuses were handed out after the brownbag. Yay! "Kevin's House Fund" is happy too.

* Finally satisfying a craving I've been having for some form of fruit or fruit juice for about 4-5 days now by going to Kroger to get juice. Tasty! (craving 2 satisfied today for those counting)

* Running into Carlyn and Jamey briefly at Kroger. I've never actually seen someone I know there before.

* I finally went to convert all of my coins to an amazon.com gift cert using one of the coinstar machines at Kroger and it got stuck. It didn't seem like the people working there were going to figure out how to get it open, but they finally did and got it unstuck. They were working on it the entire time Carlyn and Jamey were in the store (I saw them enter, then leave). For those of you who aren't aware, the Coinstar machines don't charge a fee if you get an eCertificate to a participating place like Amazon.com or Circuit City.

My Christmas Tree :)

Charlie Brown would be proud

Relaxation

* Getting my cleaning done while cooking so I could actually relax during my evening relaxation time instead of feeling guilty!

* Playing the new guitar hero after community group and not totally sucking at it in the process.  I haven't played in a while and there are new songs (some of which I actually know!).  "Irregardless" of what some people may say, knowing the song makes it way way easier.

* Going to the "holiday" lunch for the directorate.  The food was good and it was nice to take a break from work and just chat with co-workers my age, even if I didn't win any raffle prizes.

--Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year...stay tuned to find out why

Sunday

* Hanging out at Starbucks

* Hearing the kids singing really really loud during Kid Kraze this morning

* Getting a bit of cleaning done

* Playing a Twisted Sister song during KK...it was "O Come All Ye Faithful" to the tune of "We're Not Gunna Take It!"

Good Mood

* More The Big Bang Theory this evening and yesterday. I always end up laughing even after the show is over.

* Keeping busy at work and actually wanting to stay late to work on something, but I managed to leave anyway. If I do it all myself, my co-worker will miss out! I know...I'm a nerd, but at least the big bang theory makes me feel normal, although I usually understand a lot of what they say....

* Andrew's graduation part I, even though I'm not there to see it

* Being in a good mood all week. Actually, I think I've been in an unusually good mood for 3 or so weeks now....odd, but good

* Biscuits, sausage gravy, and bacon for dinner :) Unhealthy but tasty.

The big bang theory

* At some point a couple weeks ago I decided to watch "The Big Bang Theory" after a number of people recommended it. I saw one episode and figured I'd record more and just recently got the opportunity to watch them, and I absolutely love it. I downloaded season 1 after I ran out of episodes, and each one is awesome! I highly recommend it to everyone!
"Our children will be smart and beautiful"
"Not to mention imaginary."

* Being able to joke around with co-workers

* Getting a bunch of Nintendo games put on my computer so I can play them on my tv. I've got a controller on my Christmas list that will let me play all NES through N64 games just like having the real systems. (Though, it will be like using an N64 controller for NES and sega). I'm not quite sure how gameboy tetris will look like on a 40" screen... I will be getting a bunch of other system games from a co-worker over the next couple weeks, 2GB at a time.

Thanksgiving

* A safe drive to and from my Grandma's house in southern OH. Even
though it was dark, rainy, and very foggy the entire 8.5 hr drive
back, the trip was still safe and relatively smooth...no major delays
or slowdowns.

* Eating until I could eat no more on Thanksgiving....twice. And
again the next day, and the next.

* Getting a bunch of useful Christmas presents from my Grandma. :)

* Getting an old Christmas tree from my Grandma. Its not very dense,
but it is a big improvement over no tree and much cheaper then getting
one myself.

* Decorating the apartment a bit for Christmas. I still have a few
lights to put on the balcony, but the inside is about as decorated as
it is going to be.

* Almost 1/3 of the way between Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations

* Going to a potluck at work. There was a ton of food and we got to
just hang around and eat for bout an hour and a half.

* Successfully (at least I think so!) leading Community Group

* Making a pot roast myself. It turned out to be easier than I expected.