So Hyrum, Diane, Spencer and Dalyn left my home and after packing up a few things, I called my folks and told them I was on my way. So, after getting some gas, I headed over to Josh's, dropped of a present, and got one in return (Snow Crash, Thanks Josh!). Then I headed to Cedar Rapids.
After a bit of weaving through traffic, including a few morons, I made it safetly to my parents. I remember the play list on the iPod being particularly good, hitting quite a few songs that I wanted to hear.
I got there and had a bit of fun, seutp my laptop. I then did a bit of checking and headed off to Best Buy and bought a present for my parents. I got them a wireless router. Mom has a laptop from work. Hyrum, Brent, Brent, Me, and Eric all have laptops and well...we do work from my parents :) So now instead of having to all share the same computer and connection we all just share the connection. My mom seems really happy now... She was even able to do it from her bed :) So I set it allup...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Isaac and I played Diablo II for a few hours and it was fun...I leveled up the Barbarian and his mercenary a little and it was fun. I stayed up a bit late (about as late as normal) and crashed.
So my general impressions were when I first saw Lovina that she looked really tired (but it was just cause her baby had been sick and she had been up with it. Eric and Lovina and Maren look like a real happy young family. Maren is a cute baby and I think they'll be great parents for her.
I was really nice to see Mary, Jared, and Julia. I should see them more often. Jared is a lot of fun to play with. Mary's self narration is just adoreable. Julia is a lot older then the last time I saw her and still cute as a button.
I played some Settlers of Catan with Brent and Stephanie and lost.
So in my family the majority of gifts are opened on Christmas eve. I took lots of pictures. And until recently I hadn't heard anyone else do that until recently (apprently Jenny's Grandpa does that too). But we had a good time, people got stuff...lots of things were unwraped next to the fire in the fireplace. The kids had a lot of fun. the adults did too. I think the best gifts of the night were what my dad got my mom, and what Jed gave to Emily. My dad took some old slides and turned them into pictures and got some frames for them. So there were pictures of my parents on the day they got married. My mom in her wedding dress. Much younger then I remember grandparents. There was the picture of the kids from Cara to Alissa eating ice cream, with me and my blond hair. Very nice, very emotional. Jed made a jeans quilt for Emily, hand sewn. Not as big as mine, but it sure did look nice.
I got a mixer from mom and dad (Thanks mom and dad! and a muffin pan, some cookie cutters and some liners from Emily's family (Thanks Emily and Brent!). These were all things I asked for...I want to get more into cooking.
So Christmas morn comes and I wake up to sounds of joyful children, so i get up and grab my camera. I take pictures of Emily and Brent's children opening up their stockings and seeing the loot that Santa brang. I got a few pictures.
We had a good breakfast (made by emily and brent) and eventually got our stockings. Santa brang me a flashlight and Ivanhoe.
Christmas day eve, i called up Nathan, who is in town from Boston, and we planned to get together some time during the christmas vacation. So we chatted for a bit and decided to meet for lunch on sunday.
It was a good meal (at Granite City) and good conversation. And depending on how things play out I may have made 4th of July plans to see a big big fireworks display in Boston. Tayler, Jenny and Nathan's daughter, is quite the little cutie and just a bit younger then Julia....so somewhere between Julia and Maren...Anyways, I also learned that after Nathan and Jenny finish a few projects in their home they would like to move back to the Midwest. They said that seeing the way that grandparents (their parents) were with Tayler, it made them want to be a lot closer to them. So now I'm gonna keep an eye out for positions for Nathan, cause it would be cool to have them back in the midwest.
So I got home and Alissa's beau was there. And a bit later our family put him too the question. They ranged from what his name was, to silly things like if he prefers white or wheat bread. A little bit later, I decided it was time to go home and said my goodbyes, and drove home.
On my way home I passed this beat up Benz...a bit later it zoomed up behind me and I pulled to the slow lane and it passed me. I followed it for most of my trip to des moines. Watching him speed up and slow down for no apparent reason. It was kinda wierd. I got home...a bit slower then normal, but my long-distance lack of speeding ticket record :)
Oh...and of all the pictures I took I don't think I got any that were near as good as the picture I took of mary last year. Some are pretty good, but none are that good. *sigh* And my collection of pictures of my nieces and nephews is complete. I got a picture of Spencer and Dayln from Hyrum and Diane and a picture of Maren...now I just need to get to get a frame or frames to put them in.
So as much as I enjoyed spending time with my family, I'm glad I'm home. I like being home in my house.
Tomarrow is the go live for Cedar Rapids, being the last one (excluding the one we're not doing) that we bringup on Applicant Tracking. I also have a dentist appointment too. so it'll be a short day.
Woo! New years eve party is coming up!