How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

I had a good Christmas. Last week on Tuesday, the B’s and Miles flew in to stay with my parents for a week. I took a half day off of work on Wednesday to head up there for a visit. We made some cookies and caught up for a couple hours before heading over to my cousin’s house for some crab around 4. It was very tasty. I love having a dungeness supplier in the family. After that we went to see Narnia. Miles fell asleep about half way in. I left for Seattle straight from the theatre.

I returned to work on Thursday. My “half day” on Friday wasn’t so much a half day as there was some big stuff to get done. I was there about 3 hours longer than planned.

Saturday I cleaned some and finished my shopping and wrapping while waiting for Gabe to close the shop. He had planned to close at 6, but he still had a lot to do. I borrowed his keys and went to pack a bag for him to save some time. When I got back, I was surprised to see he was still open. When I went inside, I saw the largest stack of toys on the counter that I’ve ever seen. A guy who had come in to pick up an earlier secretive side purchase had also decided to buy 3 times more stuff there since all the other stores were closed. So, yay! they had a Christmas afterall and Gabe had a nice big sale. We headed out about 15 minutes after that. Luckily we made good time.

Miles was already in bed when we arrived, but the B’s got to meet Gabe finally. My parents have of course met him on the two recent Thanksgivings. Everyone went a little overboard, but it was all good. Everyone else went to bed and left Gabe and I to finish off “It’s a Wonderful Life” all by ourselves.

It was weird having a boy in my bed in my parents house. Apparently my mom had a hard time with this with “her baby”. It was kind of silly. Either we did this, or we didn’t drive up until Christmas morning (arriving probably after 10 or 11), or Gabe didn’t come at all. Mom never said anything directly to me about it anyway. I’d finally said that was what had to happen a few days before at the same time that I also blurted out that we’ll likely be “sharing a residence” by the end of next year. Somehow that was easier than saying we’d be living together. Heh.

We both got up around 7:30. I was proud of Gabe. That was extra early for him. Miles was out walking the dog in the park with “Paw Paw”. When he returned he actually showed a lot of restraint. We ate breakfast before opening presents. Adam would be jealous; The main theme of my presents was boxes. I got two cool little wooden boxes and a tiny box that my parents picked up in China wrapped in a star shaped gift box. A larger nice box contained a really cool display dragon that they also picked up there. And Gabe presented me with a Slayer Stake in the display box. The second theme was t-shirts. I got a race t-shirt for the run my brother has organized in his neighborhood for two years now, a penguin t-shirt, and a “stage crew” shirt from the dance studio. After we got home, Gabe gave me another Invader Zim shirt.

My mom finally gave in and brined the turkey this year with a little help from me. There was universal praise all around for it. I’m probably going to try it with just a turkey breast someday.

I went for a walk in the park during the afternoon with B,B,&M. Gabe stayed at the condo watching football. Gabe spent a lot of time playing with Miles. They had a great time. When Miles went to bed, he told Gabe, “Thanks for having fun with me today. It was nice meeting you.” We all chuckled at the first part. Apparently he had rehearsed it with his mom first. It was so cute.

Later on we specifically watched the Vikings game. They lost and thereby are not going to the playoffs. However, the decent performance by the QB won me the championship in my fantasy football league at work. Mixed feelings.

After the game ended we headed back to Seattle. It turns out that Santa left some lemon chocolates for me and Buffy: The Chosen Collection for me and Gabe at his place. This means we both get to find homes for our Buffy DVD sets.

On Monday and Tuesday, I mostly puttered around and pretended to clean enough to show off the house. This mostly involved cleaning up after my most recent clean out adventures. You know, the kind of cleaning that gets everything messier. The good news is I’m finally getting somewhere with all of my packratty crap. I need recycling to come every week for awhile though. Or perhaps every day.

Today the B’s were heading back home. They wanted to do Seattle today before heading to the airport. They looked at my house. We headed down to see the troll. I drove for a good view of the Space Needle for Miles. We then went to Pike Place Market. Ate lunch at Johnny Rockets then I divined my way to a penny smashing machine. We had some more time to kill after the parking meter time expired, so I drove back up to show them the shop. Gabe gave Miles *30* comic books. Miles: “He’s so nice.” We headed to the vicinity of Greenlake, which of course was crazy as soon as the sun came out. Instead, I took them to the airport.

Tomorrow I return to work. The office is officially closed, but most of my department is working this week. I’m really behind on reviewing stuff.

Oh, almost forgot to include the photo:

Status

West Virginia – Check

Fish and chips from Long John Silver’s – Check

Knowing that I am a freak – Check

All before 10 am on the West Coast

Today I visited 4 states that I had never been to previously.

I was already sleep deprived from the past week of staying up late and having to painfully get up early. Then I took the red eye to Washington DC last night. I hoped that being so sleep deprived would help me sleep on the plane. I even had all three seats to myself, so it was looking good. However, it’s still hard and there was one small screaming child two seats back from me for what seemed like the whole time. Added up I may have slept about an hour. It’s so hard to tell.

I arrived just before 6:30 am and picked up my rental car. (This was in Virginia, which is state number one that I hadn’t been to.) I was on the road at 7:00 am. I headed northeast. I went through Baltimore and then onto Delaware (state number 2) at 9:00 am. At 9:40 I entered Pennsylvania (state number 3). I headed up to Philadelphia and got stuck in the unbelievable traffic for the Army-Navy game. I had no idea it was such a big deal until I tried last week to book a hotel in the Philadelphia area. The whole city was sold out. I managed to get up to the Independence Mall area. I saw the Liberty Bell. I bought some stuff. I didn’t go into Independence Hall. The next free ticket available was over an hour and a half in the future. I didn’t have that much time to waste (tired) and parking was crazy expensive. I drove over to see the art museum then headed over to New Jersey (state number 4) just before 1:00. I turned around as quickly as possible (thought I did try really hard to cause an accident) and drove back to the DC area following the same path.

One thing I forgot to account for was all the tolls. Man it’s crazy over here. It started right out of the airport. To get to the beltway, I had to pay a 75 cent toll. The next was $2. The next was $5! There were another couple threes and twos I think. It’s all a blur. At last count, it was something like $19.75. I’m glad I got extra cash from putting 4 people’s lunches on my card on Friday.

Now I’m safe and sound in my hotel. Just as expected, they didn’t show my reservation change that I called and spoke to them about yesterday. Ah, well, I got a room. It’s all good. I’m weirdly not very tired. I’m sure I’ll crash hard tonight.

Hopefully I can get West Virginia in later during the trip. I’m up to 32 states now. 33 if I get West Virginia. I’m expecting to get the 6 New England states next summer/fall. Then I’ll have 11 left to go. I love the company travel plan