I Heart Holiday

Ok, first of all, it's 9:45 currently and I just noticed my fly is down. Damnit.

Anyway, I had a great break so far, with more to come after these two days of work. Keep checking back to this post. I'll be posting up some pictures to spice it up a bit.

Dec. 22:

We went to the inlaws for dinner. My father-in-law hired a guy playing Santa to come and visit for a few minutes to get any last minute requests and he gave them little cheapy gifts. We always used to have wife's uncle sneak over and do this, but her side of the family is at odds with eachother right now, so we haven't seen many of them since July. That isn't necessarily a bad thing with some of them. So that was pretty much it for that day. We had a good time.

Dec. 23:

We got together with many of my family's old neighbors at the house across the street from my parents. It was pretty fun talking to everyone there. I wish I wasn't the youngest one there of the original neighbors, but that's ok. I talked to one of the guys that grew up across the street for the first time in over 10 years, and even then I don't think I've ever said anything other than 'hello' before. Him and his older brother mostly hung out with my brother.

I got home from that party a little depressed, however. The older brother I just mentioned was diagnosed with brain cancer within the last 6 months or so. He went through surgery and they were able to remove about 98% of it. I guess the last 2% isn't going to go away and they gave him 3 years to live. How fucking horrible is that. He's my brothers age (34) for god's sake. I guess 3 years isn't too bad, considering it's brain cancer. About 10 years ago his mother died of the same exact thing. The other sad thing was their neighbor to the left (picture below) was crying for some of the night because it was her deceased husband's birthday. He died in May of 2004. I loved that guy. He was like an uncle to me.

This was taken Dec. '03. I never did show John this picture.

Dec. 24:

This is my parent's annual Christmas get together. The kids got lots of gifts. Nothing really worth mentioning happened. We had a lot of fun watching all the kids.

Oh...yea early in the day I witnessed possibly the worst football (American) game ever. We got crushed by the Steelers 42-0. It was horrible. Out of the 72,000 fans, there had to be at least 10 - 15,000 Steelers fans. WTF!? The only enjoyment I got out of the whole thing was watching that drunk dumbass run onto the field and get his ass tackled.

haha!

Dec. 25:

Merry Christmas! So we went back to the in-laws after opening presents for dinner and what-not. I guess it's more of a brunch? I dunno. Anyway, Wife's sister gave me an awesome present! She found the original Star Wars soundtrack on record and put it in a wall mount display for me. I used to have the exact same thing when I was a boy and played it all the time on my parents turn-table. Holy nostalgia! It was very thoughtful.

After dropping the dog off at home and briefly visiting my Aunt's house just down the street, we visited Wife's biological father's family. I attempted to fix her Uncle's clapped up WindowsME computer, but failed miserably. I told him I'm going to come back and load Win2000 on it.

We went home to relax and watch the Boy play with his stuff. After he went to bed and Wife & Baby were settled, I went back down the street to my Aunt's house and drank a lot of wine with my cousins and twin Aunts and played sherades(sp?) and Cranium. I had of fun. I don't think they've seen me drunk before.

Dec. 26:

LAN Party!! Got up hung over and drove way the hell over to Lakewood for some gaming at John's house. I didn't get home till 3am! I'll post some pictures. It's always a blast, especially with Hot Steve and Carlson there.

Dec. 27:

Had my parents over for dinner and installed a new thermostat. Lousy heating bills.....