Winter Break

Happy New Year!!!

I have been super busy all break long and it has been wonderful, except it’s going too fast! I’m SOO glad I have a couple more weeks off longer than most people. School resumes Jan 28th and I still have a ton to get done. But first let me recap my break thusfar. This is going to take a while, consider yourself warned.

Well it has been awesome. It kicked off making an extra couple hundred bucks as a student host for commencement ceremonies. It was pretty easy and definitely worth 10 bucks an hour. Right after work Matthew dropped me off at the airport and I flew down to San Diego after a couple hours of delay. San Diego was good times. We walked around Balboa Park and partook of beautiful San Deigo in the middle of December — no jackets required. It was crazy. Took some cool pics (see Facebook). Christmas was awesome. Lani worked hard and made an excellent Christmas dinch. Of course the yams were my favorite but the roast was fantastic as well. Thanks, Lani! I got lots of cool stuff for Christmas as well. Best of all was a 37″ Vizio HDTV from my mom! It’s amazing. I also got a cardigan and flour/sugar canisters from Lani/Matt/Tyson, a long sleeve T-shirt from Trevor, a knife block from Saundra, a pearl necklace and B&B Works gift basket from my dad, a sushi set from Spandi & Co., an Altec Lansing iPod docking station/stereo, “The Darling Book for Girls”, and “The Making of a Nurse” from Mike’s parents, a hot cocoa set from Jenny, a nice watch from Mike, and money from grandparents. So much good stuff! Thanks everyone!!!

The gift exchanges this year were a little odd though. I had Christmas v1.0 with Lani and her family along with Trevor and my mom; Christmas v1.5 with Mike’s parents; Christmas v2.0 with my dad; and finally Christmas v2.5 with Spandi & Co. and my Grandpa Criddle. It was a lot of cool stuff spread out over like 4 days.

It was fun to spend some time with Lani and her family. Tyson is getting bigger and is spending more time awake and responsive. Unfortunately he wasn’t feeling so good while we were out there so he was allegedly a little fussier than usual. I think it’s funny he’s super sensitive to Trevor’s sneezes and coughs… he would spas and cry if Trevor made too loud of a noise. Poor baby. Lani got a PS2 and DDR with some sweet dance pads. Unfortunately one of the dance pads had a broken pin but should be covered by the return policy. So we spent some time on Christmas day and the following day dancing it up. We also took a walk to the mall and did a little shopping and visited Matt at work. Thanks Matt and Lani for letting us stay there! Lots of fun.

After Christmas Trevor, my mom and I flew to Cupertino and spent some time there. I got to see Mike’s family including his sister who I haven’t seen for over a year. We went to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the SJ Convention Center. Apparently the man playing Jesus was the guy who originally did it in the 70s. He was an amazing singer especially for being in his 50s. It was a really good show and I’m glad the Landers let me tag along. The next day my mom took Mike and me to see Body Worlds 2 at the San Jose Tech Museum. It was really impressive and neat to check out. They just opened a knock-off one here in Sac and Mike and I wanna check it out too and see how they compare.

After a couple days in Cupertino Trevor, Libby, my dad, Saundra and myself flew to SLC for a visit. Trevor, Libby and I stayed at Spencer’s house and my dad and Saundra stayed with one of our uncles. Staying with Spandi & Co. (I think I’ll call them that from now on) was great because not only are they terrific people, but Isaac and Kaitlyn are so friggin’ cute. One might want to eat their faces. We had lots of fun hanging out, playing board/card games (and dominoes), and chillaxin. Unfortunately bitter cold temperatures and a lack of appropriate snow gear (what can I say, we’re from California) kept us from ice skating or sledding like I had wanted to. We went to this New Years festival thin in downtown SLC and if it wasn’t sooooo cold it would have been more fun and if we had been there a little earlier to see the good shows. But life happens and we got there late and were only able to see the ending of what looked like a pretty cool break dance performance and stayed to watch a fire dancing performance that ended up being pretty amateur therefore more scary than entertaining. The free ice skating turned out to be a bust due to a line out the wazoo and the fact that it was 15° out there. So we walked around temple square to see the lights and went home because Isaac said his toes were going to explode and he wanted to cut them. Throughout our short time in Utah we were some how able to see most of the family in some way, except the Jardine cousins. It was a quick trip, but fun-filled and busy. Thanks Spandi & Co.!

So after flying back to Cupertino, Mike and I drove back to Sac just in time for the storm of the year to hit. It was raining super hard and winds were gusting up to 60 mph. Trees,  branches, and powerlines all over Sacramento were falling down and nearly everyone lost power at some point. A car in my apartment complex had a tree fall in it and smashed its windshield. There is still debri throughout on the streets throughout Sacramento

So that just about sums up everything in the past month or so. Tomorrow I am going snowboarding with Mike, and I’m nervous but excited. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been snowboarding and I was in a lot better shape back them. I’m afraid I’m going to get owned by my own suckiness tomorrow. We shall see.