Merry Christmas!

Last night, because of the blizzard church was canceled, my mom had her own service.  The only problem was that our family isn't very musically inclined so when it came to the carols part we couldn't stop laughing at how bad we sounded.  Boomer was very agitated by the noise we were all making. 

 Today the roads were still very bad around where I am so no one left the house.  We opened presents in the morning and then had Christmas dinner around 3 PM.  My brother mostly received items that he would need to set up house when he moves out, which should be soon.  My loot included:

• 14" Emerilware Cast Iron Wok
• Pampered Chef Pizza Stone
• Bamboo cooking utensils
• Bamboo coaster set
  
• Bamboo napkin holder
• Bamboo letter organzer
• Bamboo cutting boards
• Bamboo lazy Susan w/ salt & pepper shakers and oil & vinegar bottles
• Fondue set
• Idiot's Guide to Fondue
• Decanter and glasses set
• Kitchen scissors
• 1001 Chocolate recipies
• Gift cards
• Blanket
• Long underwear

My only concern is being able to fit all of my new things into my car when I return to South Bend.  Christmas movies have been playing almost constantly and food is plenty.  Merry Christmas everyone!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

So classes ended about two weeks ago. The GSDO held a bowling night and Nick, Anne, Michael and myself all attended. As usual, I did a very poor job, but since no one else was amazingly great on our lane, I didn't look too bad.

Finals were last week and boy were they rough. I spent many hours studying for my math final only to walk into the test and find that two of the questions were taken from the last day of notes which we never had homework over and so I figured they would not be that heavily used. Also given that there were 430 pages of notes for the course, there were a couple other questions on the test that I couldn't remember the necessary information for. Normally, this would not have been a problem, but the test was only 7 questions long, and if you have been keeping track, I didn't know how to do at least 4 of them. I did pass the class with a B- and will have to pass the qualifier in the spring, but I will make sure I am ready for it by them. That evening, Nick came over for Jello shots and margaritas while we watched Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. The next afternoon Michael and I started the long drive to Oklahoma City. We arrived at 4 AM the next day. The trip wasn't too bad, we just traded driving shifts until we arrived.

On Sunday, we went back to the Christmas tree farm to cut down the tree we had picked out. When we got there, we found that someone had taken our tag and marking ribbon and moved them to a different tree so they could take ours. We had to walk through the farm again to find another tree, a very hard task since all the trees that were big enough seemed to have major problems, like an uneven distribution of branches or a crooked trunk, but we eventually found one and it is now in our family room decorated.

I hope my mom enjoys Christmas since she got two of her wishes. First, she has always wanted the tree in the family room so she could enjoy it more. Secondly, she wants to be snowed in for Christmas, and with the current blizzard warning that lasts until 10 PM tonight there is a good chance of her getting that.

Snow!!!

Today I woke up to a call from Michael saying that Anne and I needed to be careful when driving. I just assumed that there had been some sleet the night before, but when I walked outside it was white.

Unfortunately, the snow had melted by then end of the day but, not to worry, more is predicted for the rest of the week, in addition to dropping temperatures.